I. Classification according to printing process:

1. Direct printing (Over print, Wet print)

Direct printing is a printing directly on white fabric or on fabric that has been pre-dyed. The latter is called a cover print (also called a bottom print), and of course the print is much darker than the bottom color. About 80% of the printed fabrics on the market are used for direct printing. (Here direct printing refers to dye printing, used to distinguish from the following paint printing)

Question: How to distinguish between white print and dyed print?

If the background color of the fabric is the same on both sides (because it is a piece dye) and the print pattern is much darker than the background color, then it is a overprinted fabric, otherwise it is a white print.

2. Discharge Print

Choose not dyes to dye the base of discharge paste, resistance to dry, use detergent containing discharge agent or with resistance to discharge at the same time the design and color of the dye printing paste printing, post-processing, printed in ground are destroyed and the decolorization of dye, the color of the earth formed white pattern (called white discharge) or color pattern formed by the design and color dyes dyeing (called colour printing). Also known as white or color pull.

Compared with direct printing, the production costs of printed fabrics are high, and the use of reductants required must be carefully and accurately controlled.

Question: How do you distinguish between discharge prints and fabrics?

If the color of the ground color on both sides of the fabric is the same (because it is dyed in pieces), and the pattern is white or different from the color of the ground color, and the ground color is dark, it can be confirmed that the fabric is discharge printed.

Close inspection of the reverse side of the pattern reveals traces of the original background color (this occurs because the dye-destroying chemicals do not fully penetrate the reverse side of the fabric).

3. Anti-dyeing printing

A chemical or waxy resin printed on a white fabric to prevent or prevent the penetration of dyes into the fabric. The purpose is to create a white pattern with a background color. Note that the result is the same as for discharge printed fabrics, but the method of achieving this result is the opposite of discharge printing.

Anti-dye printing method is not widely used, generally in the background color can not discharge the case will be used. Rather than a mass production base, most resist printing is done by means such as craft or hand printing (e.g., wax resist printing).

Because discharge printing and resist printing produce the same printing effect, it is often not distinguishable by naked eye observation.

4. Burn out print

Burnt-out printing is the printing of a chemical on a pattern that destroys the fibrous tissue. As a result, holes are created where the chemicals come into contact with the fabric. The holes in the calico are always prematurely frayed around the edges, so the fabric has poor wear resistance.

Another type of burnt-out printing is a fabric made from blended, core-spun, or a mixture of two or more fibers. Chemicals can destroy one fiber (cellulose) and leave the others undamaged. This printing method can produce many special and interesting printed fabrics.

5, wrinkle printing/foaming printing

Using the printing method to apply the chemical which can make the fiber expand or shrink locally on the fabric, through proper treatment, make the difference between the fiber of the printing part and the fiber of the non-printing part swell or shrink, so as to obtain the product with regular concave and convex patterns on the surface. Such as the use of caustic soda as expansion agent of pure cotton printed seersucker. Also known as bump printing.

The foaming temperature is generally 110C, the time is 30 seconds, and 80-100 mesh screen is selected for printing.

6. Pigment Print

Because the coating is a water-soluble colorant and has no affinity for the fiber, its coloring must depend on the coating of the polymer compound (adhesive) that can form the film and the adhesion of the fiber to achieve.

The coating material printing can be used for any fiber textile processing, and has more advantages in the printing of blended and interwoven fabrics, and the process is simple, the chromatograph is broad, the flower shape is clear, but the handle is not good, the rubbing fastness is not high.

Paint printing is printing directly with paint, a process often called dry printing to distinguish it from wet printing (or dye printing).

Their fastness to light and dry cleaning is good, even good, so they are widely used in decorative fabrics, curtain fabrics and clothing fabrics requiring dry cleaning.

Question: How do you tell whether a fabric is painted or not?

The paint printing area feels a little harder than the unprinted area, maybe a little thicker, especially for the darker paint printing, the difference is obvious.

Two, according to the classification of printing machinery:

1. Manual screen printing

Hand-screen printing is commercially produced on long tables (60 yards long). Printed cloth roll smooth floor on the table, the surface of the table is pre-coated with a small amount of viscous material. The printer then moves the frames continuously by hand along the entire table, one frame at a time, until the fabric is finished. Each mesh frame corresponds to a printing pattern.

Production rates of this method range from 50 to 90 yards per hour. Commercial hand screen printing is also widely used to print cut pieces.

Hand-made screen printing is also used to produce limited quantities of highly fashionable women's clothing and small quantities of products for marketing exploration.

2. Flat Print (Screen Print)

The printing mold is fixed on the square frame and has a hollow pattern of polyester or nylon screen (flower version). The pattern on the flower plate can be passed through the color paste, no pattern in the polymer film layer to close the mesh. In printing, the printing plate presses the fabric, and the color paste is filled on the printing plate. Reciprocating scraping with a scraper makes the color paste reach the surface of the fabric through the pattern.

Flat screen printing process is intermittent rather than continuous process, so the production speed is not as fast as rotary screen.

The production rate is about 500 yards per hour.

3. Rotary Print

The printing die is a cylindrical nickel skin screen with a hollow pattern, which is installed in a certain order above the circulating rubber guide belt and can rotate synchronously with the guide belt. In printing, the color paste is input into the net and stored at the bottom of the net. When the circular net rotates with the guide belt, the scraper pressed on the bottom of the net occurs relative scraping pressure with the flower net, and the color paste reaches the surface of the fabric through the pattern on the net.

Rotary screen printing belongs to continuous processing, high production efficiency.

The rotary screen printing process is a continuous process in which the printed fabric is conveyed through a wide rubber belt under a constantly moving rotary screen tube. In screen printing, rotary screen printing has the fastest production speed of more than 3500 yards per hour.

Rotary screen making process: black and white draft inspection and preparation - cylinder choice - rotary screen clean - sensitive glue - exposure - development - curing rubber - stop - check

Supplementary knowledge:

There are three methods to realize screen printing, and the principle of each method is basically the same:

One is manual screen printing, which was very common in the 1920s and is still widely used today. Until the mid-1950s, when modern technology automated the process, manual screen printing was the only method of screen printing.

The second method is called automatic screen printing (also known as screen printing and automatic screen printing). In the mid-1960s, there was a further development, and the screen shape evolved from manual and automatic flat to circular.

The third method is called circular screen printing or circular screen printing. At present, the most widely used screen printing methods are rotary screen printing and screen printing.

4. Drum printing

Drum printing, like newspaper printing, is a high-speed process that can produce more than 6,000 yards of printed fabric per hour. This process is also called mechanical printing. The copper drum can be carved with very fine lines arranged in close arrangement, thus making it possible to print very fine and soft patterns.

This method is not economical if the quantities of each pattern are not very large.

Drum printing is the production method of mass printing with the least use. Because the fashion is getting faster and faster now, the volume of orders is getting less and less, so the output of drum printing continues to decline every year.

Drum printing is often used for prints with very fine line patterns such as paisley and major prints that are printed in large quantities in many seasons.

5. Tropical Print

First used with disperse dyes and the printing ink printed on the paper pattern, and then put the printed paper (also known as transfer paper) stored, fabric printing, through the thermal transfer printing machine, make the transfer paper and printing attached together face to face, at about 210 ℃ (400 t) conditions through the machine, in such a high temperature, dye sublimation transfer printing paper and transfer to the fabric, The printing process is completed and no further treatment is required. The process is relatively simple.

Disperse dyes are the only dyes that can sublimate and, in a sense, are the only dyes that can be heat-transfer printed, so the process can only be used on fabrics consisting of fibers with an affinity for these dyes, including acetate, acrylonitrile, polyamide, and polyester.

Heat transfer printing can be used to print a separator, in which case a specially designed pattern is used. Heat transfer printing stands out from the printing process as a complete fabric printing method, thus eliminating the need for large and expensive dryers, evaporators, washers and strollers.

The production speed of continuous heat transfer printing is about 250 yards per hour.

However, due to the temperature and other process parameters in the heat transfer process have a great impact on the final color, so if the color light requirements are very strict, this method can not be used.

6, inkjet printing (Digital Print)

Ink-jet printing is to spray dye droplets and stay on the position of the fabric. The nozzle used to spray dye liquid and pattern formation can be controlled by computer, and complex patterns and pattern cycles can be obtained.

Ink-jet printing eliminates the time delays and cost increases associated with carving drums and making screens, a competitive advantage in the fast-changing textile market. The jet printing system is flexible and fast, and can quickly switch from one pattern to another.

7. Flocking

A flocking print is a printing in which the fiber fluff (about 1/10-1/4 inch) called a fibrebrel is adhered to the surface of the fabric in a specific pattern. The process is two-stage. First, a pattern is printed on the fabric using an adhesive rather than a dye or paint, and then the fiber staple is attached to the fabric. The fiber staple stays in place only where the adhesive was applied. There are two methods of attaching fibers to a fabric surface: mechanical flocking and electrostatic flocking.

The fibers used for electrostatic flocking include all the fibers used in actual production, among which viscose and nylon are the most common. In most cases, staple fibers are dyed before being transferred to the fabric.

The resistance of flocking fabrics to dry cleaning and/or water washing depends on the nature of the adhesive.

The appearance of the flocking fabric can be suede or plush, or even plush.

8. Beam Print/Beam Print

Warp printing is the process of printing the warp of a fabric before weaving and weaving it into a fabric with a plain-colored weft (usually white), but sometimes the color of the weft contrasts sharply with the color of the printed warp. The result is a soft, Shadowed and even blurry pattern effect on the fabric.

9. Cold transfer printing

Cold transfer printing technology, also known as wet transfer printing, has become an emerging printing method in China since it was introduced from Europe in the 1990s. It is a kind of paper printing, which is different from traditional round/flat screen printing and heat transfer printing.

Cold transfer printing machine tension is small, easy to deformation of fabric is suitable for printing the tension, such as cotton, high production efficiency, to thin silk, nylon fabric can get better heat transfer effect, especially good at printing complex characters, landscape pattern, has a strong administrative levels feeling and stereo feeling, the effect can be rivalled with digital direct injection, and printing process to achieve the energy conservation and emissions reduction, Therefore, it is favored by people.

The principle of cold transfer printing is to use dyes with good solubility and stability (reactive dyes, acid dyes, etc.) to make the color paste, and adjust the surface tension between the color paste and the paper, the image is clearly printed on the paper coated with release agent, drying and rolling. Then, the fabric to be printed (softener, smoothing agent and other water-repellent additives cannot be added after the pretreatment) is soaked with printing pretreatment solution, and then aligned with transfer printing paper. After lamination, the pretreatment solution on the fabric dissolves the color paste on transfer printing paper through the transfer printing unit. Under certain pressure conditions, due to the dye affinity for the fabric is greater than the transfer paper, dye transfer and into the fabric pores. Finally, the paper and cloth are separated, the fabric is dried through the oven and sent to the steamer to steam the hair color within the specified time.

Other printing methods rarely used in textile production are: wood stencil printing, wax (or wax proof) printing, and yarn tie-dyed cloth

3. Other printing methods:

1, double-sided printing

Double-sided printing is the printing on both sides of the fabric to obtain a double-sided effect of the fabric, similar to the appearance of packaging fabrics with a coordinated pattern on both sides. End use is limited to double-sided sheets, tablecloths, lineless or double-sided jackets and shirts.

2, through printing

For lightweight fabrics, such as cotton, silk and blended knitted fabrics, sometimes it is required that the double-sided printing effect is used in part of which needs to be turned out at the cuff or collar, and the printing paste must have good vertical permeability and horizontal impermeability, so it is necessary to have a special high-performance discharge printing paste.

3, pearl, luminous printing

There are natural and artificial pearlescent, can be extracted from fish scales artificial pearlescent. Pearl light does not need light source excitation, acid and alkali resistance, high temperature resistance. Pearl printing shows the soft luster of pearl, elegant and elegant, with excellent hand and fastness. Pearlescent paste is suitable for all kinds of fiber printing. It can be used alone or mixed with paint to produce colored pearlescent. In the printing process, the general use of 60-80 purpose screen is better. Luminescent printing mainly uses luminescent crystal pulp to print on the surface of the fabric, and makes luminescent pulp fixed on the fabric through pre-drying and melting. It is mainly used in the elastic interwoven products of polyamide and spandex.

4. Luminous printing

Luminous powder is a kind of rare earth metal, made of about 1μM fineness powder, with coating printing method, the luminous powder is printed on the fabric, to form a pattern. After a certain amount of light, the flower pattern can emit light for 8-12 hours, with good luminous effect and good hand feel and fastness. But it is only limited to printing on light and medium color.

5. Capsule printing

Microcapsules are composed of an inner core and a coating. The inner core is a dye and the coating is a gelatin. There are three kinds of microcapsules: single core type, multi-core type and compound type. The particles of the microencapsulated dye range from 10 µM to 30µM

6. Matting printing (imitation jacquard printing)

Using the coating printing process to obtain partial matte printing effect with clear light and shade, which is similar to jacquard style. Matting pulp is generally made of titanium dioxide or white paint as matting agent, with a non-yellowing adhesive composition. Mainly used in satin or twill silk, rayon, synthetic fiber, cellulose fiber knitted fabrics and blended fabrics, can also be used on calendered fabrics and sample paper.