Heat transfer and sublimation printing

Ogee inspired border pattern, featuring droplet motif. 

Transfer printing predates printing with subUmatimi dyestuffs however, as the two technologies are intertwined, they often run in tandem, collaborating as much as competing. 

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There are two principal technologies for transfer thermography, mass transfer, sometimes called wax transfer, and sublimation printing. Both strategies require a donor sheet, one for each primary color to be printed. The donor sheet(s) passes over the print head in contact with the receptor, i.e., the paper. In the former technique, the heat melts a wax-based ink coated on the donor, and causes it to transfer to the receptor in terms of ink for-... 

Thermal Printing. Thermal printing is a generic name for methods that mark paper or other media with text and pictures by imagewise heating of special-purpose consumable media. Common technologies are direct thermal thermal, ie, wax, transfer and dye-sublimation, ie, diffusion, transfer. Properties and preferred appHcations are diverse, but apparatus and processes are similar (87—89). 

Sublimation transfer. The sublimation dyestuff is inkjet printed onto a paper substrate. On pressing with heat, the ink releases from the paper as a gas and fixes into the polyester fabric as a solid on cooling, without any film or further fixing (Hale, 1994). 

Heat and usually pressure are needed to fix the transferred or directly printed pattern into the textile substrate. For sublimating dyes, heat activates sublimation with the dye particles transforming from solid to gaseous form, easily penetrating into the fibers, often with pressure helping to force the particles into the spaces in the polyester fibers,... 

Heat transfer printing n. A method, whereby a printed image is transferred from a carrier to a receiving substrate by the use of heat. In the process, as currently performed, the ink is made up of sublimable dyes in conventional ink vehicles the carrier is paper, and the receiving substrate is a synthetic fabric. 

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