Inkjet printing method for heat sensitive substrates

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10500875-B2
Application number	US-201615770766-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 25, 2016
Priority date	Oct 27, 2015
Publication date	Dec 10, 2019
Grant date	Dec 10, 2019

Abstract

An inkjet printing method using an inkjet printing device including a vacuum support for a substrate held down against a support surface of the vacuum support by air suction includes a step of jetting a set of layers with a set of liquids on the support surface to form a pattern with a surface roughness between 2.0 μm and 200.0 μm and rougher than the surface roughness of the support surface, and a step of supporting the substrate at least partially on the pattern.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An inkjet printing method using an inkjet printing device including a vacuum support to hold a substrate on a support surface by air suction, the method comprising the steps of:
jetting a plurality of layers with a set of liquids on the support surface to define a pattern having a surface roughness between 2.0 μm and 200.0 μm and rougher than a surface roughness of the support surface; and
supporting the substrate at least partially on the pattern; wherein
the substrate is a heat-sensitive substrate which loses structural integrity above a temperature of 35° C.

2. The inkjet printing method according to claim 1 , wherein the vacuum support includes a vacuum belt.

3. An inkjet printing method using an inkjet printing device including a vacuum support to hold a substrate on a support surface by air suction, the method comprising the steps of:
jetting a plurality of layers with a set of liquids on the support surface to define a pattern having a surface roughness between 2.0 μm and 200.0 μm and rougher than a surface roughness of the support surface; and
supporting the substrate at least partially on the pattern; wherein
the step of jetting the plurality of layers is performed while applying a vacuum suction with the vacuum support via a plurality of vacuum apertures.

4. The inkjet printing method according to claim 3 , further comprising the steps of:
inkjet printing on the substrate; and
after the step of inkjet printing on the substrate, removing the pattern from the vacuum support.

5. The inkjet printing method according to claim 4 , wherein the step of removing the pattern includes:
wiping the pattern mechanically off the vacuum support; and/or
wiping the pattern chemically off the vacuum support; and/or
scratching the pattern off the vacuum support; and/or
peeling the pattern off the vacuum support; and/or
gumming the pattern off the vacuum support; and/or
burning the pattern off the vacuum support.

6. The inkjet printing method according to claim 4 , wherein the inkjet printing device includes a dryer and a set of inks, and the method further comprises the steps of:
drying the plurality of layers jetted on the support surface with the dryer;
after the step of supporting the substrate, jetting an image with the set of inks on the substrate; and
drying the image with the dryer.

7. The inkjet printing method according to claim 6 , wherein the set of liquids defines a portion of the set of inks.

8. The inkjet printing method according to claim 7 , wherein a jetting viscosity of the set of liquids and/or the set of inks is between 25 mPa·s and 300 mPa·s.

9. The inkjet printing method according to claim 3 , wherein the plurality of layers is at least 2.

10. The inkjet printing method according to claim 3 , wherein the pattern includes a plurality of dried-and-jetted clusters and each of the plurality of dried-and-jetted clusters is formed by jetting and drying a plurality of droplets of the set of liquids; and
each of the plurality of dried-and-jetted clusters has a surface area between 400 μm 2 and 100,000,000 μm 2 .

11. The inkjet printing method according to claim 3 , wherein the pattern includes a lattice pattern having a thickness between 5 μm and 300 μm, or a pseudo-random pattern having a thickness between 5 μm and 300 μm.

12. The inkjet printing method according to claim 3 , wherein the pattern includes a dimple pattern.

13. The inkjet printing method according to claim 12 , wherein the dimple pattern has a dimple perimeter that defines a circle, ellipse, oval, triangle, square, rectangle, pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon, rhombus, rectangle, regular polygon, or any polygon including at least three sides.

14. The inkjet printing method according to claim 3 , wherein the inkjet printing device includes a gantry coupled to a print head, and the method further comprises the step of:
moving the vacuum support, parallel to a plane of the support surface, linearly and relatively to the gantry underneath the print head in a first direction to position the print head above the substrate and the support surface.

15. The inkjet printing method according to claim 14 , further comprising the step of:
moving the print head, parallel to the plane of the support surface, from the vacuum support and perpendicular to the first direction, linearly along the gantry and jetting on the substrate or on the support surface.

16. The inkjet printing method according to claim 3 , wherein the substrate includes a woven or non-woven textile, leather, plastic foil, or paper which is impregnated with a thermosetting resin.

Assignees

• Agfa Nv

Inventors

• Bouwens Luc
• Barrett Mark
• Van Garsse Joris

Classifications

• B41J11/007

  Conveyor belts or like feeding devices · CPC title

• B41J3/4078

  Printing on textile · CPC title

• B41J11/0085 Primary

  Using suction for maintaining printing material flat (on rotatable drums B41J13/226) · CPC title

• B41J2/2117

  Ejecting white liquids · CPC title

• B65H5/224

  by suction belts (B65H11/005 takes precedence) · CPC title