Digital sublimation printing:a sustainable success story

Martial Blanc – FESPA Digital 2012

Sensient Inks Europe

2

Digital sublimation printing – a sustainable success story

Agenda

Short presentation of Sensient

Look back on the booming development of Digital Sublimation

Printing

Key factors to this success

Future outlook

Pros and Cons of sublimation printing within current environment

Conclusion

3

Sensient Technologies Ltd.

Headquarter: Millwaukee (WI), USA

>3500 employees

70 locations in 30 countries

> 1.2 billions US$ turnover

Fields of activity:

Food & Beverage

Pharmaceuticals

Cosmetics

Personal &Home Care

Display Imaging

Industrial Colors

Inkjet &Specialty Inks

4

Sensient Imaging Technologies – Inks Europe

1988 Foundation of ECS (SICPA division)

Traditional sublimation inks

& Desensitizing inks

1992 Starting research

on inkjet sublimation inks

1998 First commercial sublimation ink

for piezo heads

2002 Joined Sensient umbrella

Today: Traditional sublimation inks (any printing technique)

Inkjet sublimation inks

Inkjet pigmented inks for textile

Desensitizing inks

5

Success Story: why?

Traditional Textile Printing*27 Billion m2 (2009)Growth 3%/year from 2010

Digital Textile Printing250 Millon m2 (2009)Growth 20%

Reactive27%

Reactive28%

Sublimation4%

Sublimation52%

Disperse Direct15%

Disperse Direct8%

Acid3%

Acid10%

Pigment51%

Pigment2%

* Figures from John Provost’ presentation, Textile conference FESPA 2011

6

Key factors to explain this success

Perfect fit with “l’Air du Temps”

Environmental

Dry process – No post washing

No need for treatment of water effluent

Low investment cost

Market conditions

Mass customization trend

Ever shortening runlengths per colorway[Stork report 1997]

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

89 92 94 97 2000

Ru

n le

ng

th p

er c

olo

rway

[m

]

Rotary

Flatbed

Roller

7

Key factors to explain this success

Market conditions

Soft signage & Sportswear : new market demand

Health and Safety

If the fabric is Oekotex 100 compliant, the printed fabric also is!

Technical

Availability of good piezo printheads

Existing large format graphic printers were doing the job

Vivid colors even with only CMYK

Easy (dry) fixation process enabled production to take place virtually anywhere.

Polyester is a very standardized product not requiring any pre-treatment when decorated by sublimation printing

8

Pefect Fit for this Textile Printing Evolution

                                                            

                 

Conventional Industry:“Print & Distribute”

Digital Industry:“Distribute & Print”

Mass Production Mass Customization

9

Future outlook

Faster IJ printers built around industrial printheads are currently speeding up the conversion from traditional to IJ in general, therefore the less digitalized textile segments to go digital

10

Which future for digital sublimation printing? Is its success story sustainable outside sportswear and soft signage?

* Figures from John Provost’ presentation, Textile conference FESPA 2011

+

2009 Long-term futureWhat will be the market share of sublimationWhen Traditional and Inkjet will have merged?

Trad.

IJ

GlobalTextilePrinting…%?

Pigment

Reactive

Acid

Disperse Direct

Sublimation

11

Digital Sublimation Printing: Pros

Environmental

Growing concerns about soft water supply in relationship to the current climate change speak in favor or a dry printing process

[1kg of polyester requires < 20l of water vs. >10’000l for 1kg of cotton]

Extreme case: shrinking of the Aral Sea due to excessive use of irrigation water

12

Digital Sublimation Printing: Pros

Health and Safety

Growing regulatory burden (e.g. REACH) is weighing on consumer product producers, and sublimation printing effortless delivers Oekotex 100 compliance.

Fabrics treated with flame retardant compound keep their properties after decoration by sublimation

Polyester is a very standardized material, the quality of which is stable and is not subject to climatic fluctuations, as experienced by cotton recently.

13

Digital Sublimation Printing: Cons

Polyester is not green!

Is the production of cotton much greener, bearing in mind the high amount of very often irrigation water required to grow the crop + the large use of fertilizers and pesticides?

Polyester make one smell bad!

Heritage from the 70s!

Microfibres introduced in the mid 80s

Breathing fabrics (GoreTex®) since mit 80s

The feel of polyester textile is bad!

Technical polyester drastically improved since the 70s

Cf. samples handed over to you

14

Digital Sublimation Printing: Cons

Sublimation dyes exhibit limited light fastness as compared to disperse direct or pigments. True, but do we always need high light fastness?

E.g. a flag is often broken in less time than the color needs to fade…

Sublimation is used as a standard in home furnishing Sublimation printing only prints single side – no penetration

It is possible to print directly with sublimation inks and obtain similar penetration as with other ink chemistry.

Fixation with dry heat - no steamer required Sublimated polyester cannot be washed above 60°C

Is it not a good thing for the environment bearing in mind that polyester does not required hot water to be properly washed?

15

Conclusions

As a late entrant among the textile printing techniques, sublimation printing on textile was a niche neglected or rather ignored by the rest of the textile printing industry.

Now that the visibility of sublimation printing has vastly increased thanks to digital printing, the intrinsic strengths of this textile printing technique should make possible to sustain the success experienced to date.

16

Thank you