Surface Pretreatment of Polyester Fabric for Ink Jet Printing with Radio Frequency O-2 Plasma

Plasma treatment of textiles is becoming more and more popular as a surface modification technique. It not only changes the outermost layer of a material without interfering with the bulk properties but also offers the advantage of greater chemical flexibility to obtain multifunctional textiles. Inkjet printing is becoming increasingly important and popular for the printing of textiles. When polyester fabric is inkjet printed with pigment-based inks, the printed patterns have poor color yield and easily bleeding. As a result, the fabric requires pretreatment prior to the stage of ink-jet printing. In the present study the polyester fabric was printed with magenta pigment ink after radio frequency O-2 plasma surface-treatment. At such condition, polyester fabric could obtain the effects of features with enhanced color yield and excellent pattern sharpness. The results showed that there were better patterns when the polyester fabric was treated for 9 min at a working pressure of 40 Pa and a working power 80 W. SEM images indicated that radio frequency oxygen plasma induced modifications to the surface of polyester fabric with more micro pits. Water absorption time measurement showed that the hydrophilicity of polyester fabric was remarkably improved after treatment. Anti-bleeding performance of the fabric was improved greatly, too. Therefore, radio frequency O-2 plasma treatment with the ink-jet printing technique could improve the final printed properties of polyester fabric.