A study on the applicability of pigment digital printing on cotton fabrics

Abstract

In digital printing, the fabric print quality can only be evaluated through the color and pattern of printed fabric after printing. The influence of the physical properties of fabric on the printing effect remains unclear. In this paper, the digital print suitability of cotton fabric was defined, and 14 samples of plain cotton fabrics were taken as research objects. In addition, 11 evaluation indexes of cotton fabrics were selected. The evaluation and prediction model of cotton fabric printability was established by principal component analysis. Furthermore, the prediction results of the model were verified by analyzing the colorimetric data of cotton fabric after printing. The result demonstrated that the evaluation model of printing suitability was applicable and can be used to quickly evaluate the printability of cotton fabrics. Particularly, fabric thickness had the greatest influence on printing permeability. In the case of moderate wicking, the higher the whiteness of cotton fabric, the better the color reproducibility after printing. Additionally, the wicking effect also had a great influence on color performance.