INK-JET PRINT QUALITY IMPROVEMENT THROUGH THE USE OF CATIONIC SMA RESIN ADDITIVE IN PAPER COATING

Ink-jet printing technology is a prominent feature of any home office as it is more economical when compared with other printing technologies. The base paper for this study was a commercial fine paper, coated on one side with a typical formula of 100 pph pigment: 30 pph binder: ≤ 1 pph additive at 25% solids content. The focus of this paper was to evaluate a cationic resin additive in the coating formulation and its effect on print image sharpness. The print image sharpness was assessed based on the measured parameters of mean grey scale, area and perimeter of the image. Compared with a typical coating additive (i.e. Poly-dadmac), the coatings with SMA resin additives showed good grey scale ink density on the sheet. Compared to uncoated samples, the ink deposited on the SMA containing coated sheets was not absorbed into the paper, allowing for better print areas to be produced. The results of this study demonstrated the potential of further developing this cationic resin as a paper coating additive.