KRONOS, Covestro Show Pigmented Ink Solutions for Textiles

The textile industry aims to reduce its environmental footprint. Switching from analog printing to digital printing using pigment inks can enable an 85% reduction in waste materials, a 55% lowering of energy consumption, a 60% reduction of water consumption, and a 95% decrease of CO2 emissions, and represents an opportunity to make textiles more sustainable.

Digital textile printing also enables efficiency benefits such as shorter times to market and single-digit lot sizes produced close to end consumers. These advantages mean the adoption of inkjet printing is growing, but the technology will only reach its potential if it is supported by advanced formulations and carefully selected raw materials, specially designed for digital textile printing. Not all polyurethane binders are suitable.

KRONOS and Covestro are collaborating to demonstrate how innovative new material solutions can support the uptake of digital inkjet printing on fabrics, advancing the textile industry’s sustainability transition.

Following testing by the two raw material suppliers and validation by industry partners, the collaboration successfully demonstrates that Covestro’s waterborne INSQIN portfolio of Impranil polyurethane binders and Imprafix cross-linkers is compatible with the white pigment dispersion KRONOS 9900 Digital White. No significant sedimentation was observed, and all formulations showed good stability even after four weeks of testing at 50°C.

As such, the proven compatibility of the four Covestro binders Impranil DL 1602, Impranil DL 1618, Impranil DL 1620, and Impranil DL 1623 with KRONOS 9900 Digital White opens the door to increased uptake of inkjet fabric printing. Together, these ingredients create a suitable formulation for a reliable printing process.

Covestro also developed a new polyurethane dispersion, Impranil DL 1606, specifically to address the particular problem of sagging – a well-known quality issue resulting from the relatively high ink loads needed for direct-to-foil (DTF) printing, which was identified in the context of the collaboration.

This binder offers excellent anti-sagging properties and enables high white ink loads, making it a choice for white pigment inks used in inkjet printing.

“By joining forces with another raw materials supplier, we can address two key pigment ink challenges facing the growing digital inkjet printing market: formulation and sagging,” said Dr. Torsten Pohl, head of global textile coatings, Covestro. “Working together with KRONOS brings us another step closer to a more sustainable textile industry.”