High viscosity hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose to improve inkjet printing for cotton/polyamide fabrics

When dyes were used for inkjet printing on multi-component fabrics, the complex acid-base conditions, high temperature and high humidity posed a challenge to the stability of water-soluble polymers covered the surface of the fabrics. In this study, hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose (HPMC) was used to construct a continuous film on the surface of cotton/polyamide interwoven fabric. The results show that the formation of ridges between fibers is closely related to the properties of HPMC. Fibers in the yarn were connected to each other by HPMC, which prevented inks from penetrating into the bottom of the yarns. Meanwhile, HPMC maintained high viscosity under acidic conditions, which provided conditions for reactive dyes to dye polyamide fibers under acidic conditions. Compare with sodium alginate, the color depth of cyan, magenta, yellow and black improved by 75.1 %, 101.8 %, 181.3 %, 207.5 % on cotton/polyamide fabrics using HPMC, separately. Hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose is effective to improve inkjet printing for cotton and polyamide fiber, which has the possibility of widespread application in natural fiber and synthetic fiber.