Co-polymerized CMY colored polyurethane latex with high color strength and fastness for inkjet printing

Abstract

Textile digital inkjet printing suffers from substrate pretreatment, a low color fixation rate and a huge environmental cost. Covalently colored polymer latex is promising for applying in digital inkjet field, but is limited by the commercial dye structure in terms of standard color, dark color and economy. Based on the polymerizable dye library of Tsaihua Technology Company, we selected three types of structures with economical and brilliant colors, whose hues did not change after polymerization. Through PU copolymerization, we obtained three primary colors of CMY colored polyurethane with high molecular weight, and the latex after emulsified have dozens of nanometer size and excellent freezing and heat storage stability. The simple ink system prepared based on colored polyurethane latex can achieve low penetration, high precision printing, and standard, bright and brilliant color printing on unprocessed cotton fabrics and paper surfaces. The printed fabric achieves a color retention rate of over 94% after drying at 80 °C for 5 minutes, a dry friction level above 4.5, and a wet friction level above 3.5. The standard hue polymer printable latex developed in this study should inspire new advances in printable covalently colored latex and provide a greener, safer and smarter color printing material for digital inkjet printing.