Research for pretreatment

The extra step to pretreat fabric did impact negatively on the speedy uptake of ink jet printing for textiles. Research continues into novel or improved ways to pretreat cloth for digital or ink jet printing, aiming to improve dye retention, maximize color integrity, and minimize effluent. This research covers diverse areas, but some key research paths are  

Additional, altered, or alternative pretreatment ingredients. The aim of these is to improve on the standard uptake and fixation of dye molecules on various substrates and reduce negative environmental impacts. Examples include amino compounds on silk (Phattanarudee et al., 2009) and chitosan, as both a binder and a postprint fixation treatment (Momin, 2008). Chitosan is a biopolymer obtained from chitin, an abundant polysaccharide found in the exoskeleton of shrimp and crab and often dumped as waste. 

Novel methods of pretreatment that alter the physical or chemical structure of the fiber itself. This is to improve the uptake and fixation of dye molecules as well as the fiber s display of 

Improvements in a process cannot be considered in isolation, as adjustments anywhere reverberate along the chain with the potential to positively and negatively affect the rest of the process. The scientific study of factors in isolation may also mean that results in a laboratory do not always reflect real-life conditimis. The pigment-based 

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