Novel Tailor made coatings for textile digital printing with pigments combining a PTP-pretreated and durable functionalities in one processing step - PTP+FUN

Project summary

Digital pigment printing of home and outdoor textiles is fast growing because of the advantages over dye-based systems such as better light fastness, less depend on type of textile and the simple printing process. Disadvantages such as reduced colour fastness and harsher handle need to be improved. Most printed textiles require an postcoating process incorporating functionalities like fire retardant, antimicrobial or repellent properties. The objective is to develop cost-effective, sustainable Prepare-To-Print and FUNctionalized (PTP+FUN) coatings for the home, outdoor textile market in one production step. The PTP-treatment aims optimal printing performance whereas the FUN-treatment involves the incorporation of sustainable functionalities. These coatings simplify the current 4 step-processing route of (pretreatment)-(printing)-(dry/fix)-(postcoating) into a 3-step process of (pretreat+coating)-(printing)-(dry+fix) resulting in additional economic and environmental cost reductions.