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Interview on Hongsam SILKMATE® Acid Dye Inks

Interview on Hongsam SILKMATE® Acid Dye Inks
Question: What is acid dye ink?
Answer: The so-called acid dyes are a type of anionic dyes that contain acidic groups and have direct properties for protein fibers and polyamide fibers in acidic, weakly acidic,  neutral-bath dyeing. In the inkjet ink industry, the ink which made from acid dyes is called "Acid Dye Ink", and some are called "Acid Ink". This can easily lead to misunderstanding that the acidity of this ink is acidic, it is completely wrong. The PH value of acid ink is generally weakly alkaline, and it will not cause damage and corrosion to the nozzle, pipeline, etc. e. It is an ink with high chemical stability and safety.
Question: What kind of fiber fabric is suitable for acid dye ink?
Answer: Acid dye ink is most suitable for Nylon fiber with amide structure, animal protein fiber with amino acid structure. Therefore, acid dye ink is the most preferred digital printing ink for fabrics such as nylon, wool, cashmere, rabbit hair, and silk,etc.
Question: What are the characteristics of acid dye inks?
Answer: Acid dyes have many advantages, of which the most important ones, and also the most concerned in the industry are:
1. Acid ink has complete chromatography, especially the fluorescent ink has the best color brightness and gaiety among all digital printing inks.
2. Safe to print head. Acidic inks can’t be hydrolyzed, so it’s stable, unlike reactive inks, which can cause nozzle corrosion and damage. In particular, it has avoided the industry's belief that vinyl sulfone reactive dyes may cause damage the to print head. Therefore, the long self-life of the print head and the low overall cost are all its advantages.
3. High dye-uptake. Acid dyes has a high degree of directness and dye-uptake for nylon, wool and silk fabrics, less floating color, high fastness, and low pressure of post-processing washing .
4. The stability of active black and color shade troubles are solved. Compared with reactive ink, acid dye ink has great advantages in black color performance, color shade, light fastness, washing fastness .
Question: What is the complete chromatogram?
Answer: Now there are 12colors available for different printer configurations and fastness requirements. It can satisfy the pursuit of gorgeous colors with nylon prints. For nylon printing, there are no other types of inkjet inks that can be so gorgeous and so effective.

Some nylon color chart

Question: Why reactive dye inks are mostly be chosen for silk printing ? What are the advantages of acid dye ink?
Answer: Most of the traditional silk wool fabrics are dyed and printed with acid dyes. However, silk and protein fabrics contain many amino and carboxyl groups, reactive dyes have certain ability to dye these groups, coupled with the lack of domestic promotion of acid dye inks, as if the reactive ink in the field of digital printing as a standard. However, it is better to fix the reactive dye under alkaline conditions, but the alkali agent in the pre-treatment slurry will damage to silk and wool fabrics, especially high-end cashmere fabrics, in order to avoid the fibers under alkaline conditions. In order to reduce the damage, the fixing mechanism under weak acid conditions used. However, reactive dyes are easily hydrolyzed and detached from the fibers under acidic conditions in alkaline conditions. This results in insufficient saturation of the color development and failure to maximize the color.
In addition, purely in terms of ink, the acid dye ink will not be hydrolyzed, and will be stored and used stably. Most reactive inks on the market promise shelf life of 6 months, while acid inks can reach shelf life of 2 years, which indicates the stability of their chemical properties; at the same time, during the digital printing process using acid dye inks, the ink will not release corrosive inorganic to nozzle due to hydrolysis, so ink can ensure long-term stability, and does not hurt the nozzle, greatly reducing nozzle loss. It is reported that some nozzles using reactive inks for only a few months, which poses a great safety risk to the nozzles, increasing the risk and intangible cost factors. These are all good reasons for silk and wool fabrics return to acid ink printing.
Question：Is there any advantage of SILKMATE® acid ink on fastness?
Answer：According to the test report of SGS. The rubbing fastness, washing fastness and lightfastness have all achieved very good results as follows:
SILKMATE® acid ink test report (SGS)
Test Date 2018.02.28 Test report code NO.SL218022003456TX
Ink Hongsam Acid ink DC501300 Ink amount  100%，1440*720DPI
Printer HJ-8420 Printed Fabric Silk Satin
Test Result
Items C M Y K
Rub fastness Dry-rub 4-5 4-5 4-5 4-5
Wet-rub 4-5 4 4-5 4-5
Soap washing fastenss Discoloration 4-5 4-5 4-5 4-5
White cloth stained - with multi-fiber interlining acetate 4-5 4-5 4-5 4-5
Cotton 4-5 3 4-5 4-5
Nylon 4-5 3 4-5 3-4
Polyester 4-5 4-5 4-5 4-5
Acrylic 4-5 4-5 4-5 4-5
Wool 4-5 4-5 4-5 4-5
Light fastness（Level 6，64 hours） 5 4 6 6
Standard 1、Rub fastenss：ISO 105-X12 :2016。

2、Washing fastenss：ISO 105-C06 :2010。

3、Light fastenss：   ISO 105-B02 :2014
Test report index code: SL218022003456TX
Question：Is there any special feature of the black color of SILKMATE® acid ink?
Answer：Hongsam uses reactive black and active technology, acid black and acid technology to print on silks respectively. After different fixing techniques, the following conclusions are obtained: From the comparison results, the acidic LAB color values clearly exceed the active black in depth. This is also true from the K/S value, which is roughly 10% deeper. There are no significant differences of color shades.
Question：Is there any environmental advantage of SILKMATE® acid ink?
Answer：SILKMATE® acid ink has passed the test of OEKO-TEX (ECO-PASSPORT),  which demonstrates that SILKMATE® has a worldwide convincing environmental safety.

Question：What’s the advantage of SILKMATE® for printing on wool fabric.
Answer：It's Ideal for digital printing on wool and cashmere fabrics. Not only has the excellent performance of various fastnesses, but also upgraded products have been specially upgraded with high light fastness ink configuration. Hongsam digital advanced acid ink is a new product that is upgraded for customers who have special requirements for light fastness. These fastnesses greatly exceed that of reactive dyes. Digital printing with SILKMATE® acid inks will match the intrinsic qualities of your advanced fabrics! The following figure shows the effect of digital printing on wool double-sided fabrics. Of course, according to your fabric thickness using appropriate ink control, or use double-sided digital printing, in order to achieve a different printing effect!

Question：What’s the performance of SILKMATE® on nylon fabric?
Answer：Very satisfactory color performance and fastness effects can be obtained. If it is a high-end brand for outdoor applications, you can also use SILKMATE® (HL) high lightfast type acid ink. In addition, for fluorescent colors that require brilliant performance, you can also choose to use it.

Question：Hongsam digital acid ink technology source is its own intellectual property right?
Answer：Yes, there is no potential problem of intellectual property rights disputes. It is very suitable for the use of high quality requirements by large enterprises. Use patented products, rest assured!

3rd, March 2018