QUALITY

INK PROPERTIES

Viscosity

Viscosity

Viscosity is a measure of a liquid’s ability to resist flow. The viscosity of ink strongly affects printing stability, penetration and sharpness. Viscosity changes due to temperature so ink is recommended to use in a working environment of 15°C~35°C (59°F~95°F).

Conductivity

Conductivity

Conductivity shows the size of the ion concentration in the ink. Too much salt in the ink, the nozzle is easy to form crystals, resulting in damage to the cartridge. BCinks adopts salt filtration technology to produce stable ink with low salt inside.

UV Spectrum

UV Spectrum

Ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry refers to absorption spectroscopy or reflectance spectroscopy in the ultraviolet-visible spectral region. With this method we can analyze inks to do color matching, or to compare color density of inks with same raw materials.

PH Value

PH Value

Right pH range in the printing process must be maintained to avoid improper drying speed, foaming problem, etc. A running pH range should be established, and maintained. BCinks ink are generally in the weak alkali range in order to achieve the highest consistent printing quality.

Particle Size

Particle Size

BCinks knows how to disperse pigment and maintain stability of pigment particles in ink production using our technology originated from Taiwan. With smaller particle sizes of 80nm -120nm(0.08-0.12um) for black and color inks, we can ensure consistent printing with no damage to the head and uniform absorption of the pigment molecules on the paper to present clear images in high resolution.

Surface Tension

Surface Tension

Surface tension influences the dot stability, ink drying speed, bleeding and color performance on the print media.

Solvent based inks are naturally of lower surface tensions. Water based inks require surfactants to lower their surface tensions to acceptable levels for spreading and adhesion.

Different print heads would require different surface tensions, too. Ink formulations are made according to careful consideration of the above factors.

INK PROPERTIES

Color Gamut
Color Gamut

Color Gamut

Color gamut is a measure on how large the color range that ink can express, using L*a*b* values of CIE, the international standard. BCinks chooses raw materials carefully to ensure either widest color gamut or closest to OEM depends on customer request.

Color Gamut
Color Gamut

Optical Density

Optical density is also called absorbance, it expresses the radiation falling upon printed media with ink and the radiation transmitted. BCinks inks are of higher color density so as to make it easy for our customers to make ICC profiles based on different requirements, and save ink cost in printing.

FLUENCY OF PRINTING

Surface Tension

Degassing

Degassing means removing the dissolved O2 and N2 inside ink through negative pressure. The less air contained in ink, the less feasibility for ink to block print head. The dissolved oxygen in BCinks ink is less than 3mg/L, which means fluid printing.

Surface Tension

Head life

We use PALL filters up to 0.5micron from the USA in ink production process to make sure insoluble materials are removed at most. It is one of the reasons to ensure clear colors and outstanding print quality of BCinks inks.

BCinks uses high purity raw materials with low salt content to restore the image saturation, fully demonstrated the bright parts of the image.

INK PROPERTIES

Abrasion Resistance

Abrasion Resistance

Abrasion resistance is one of the main standards to judge pigment ink, no matter for piezo electric or thermal head. Abrasion resistance can be checked especially on glossy photo paper. BCinks pigment ink has better adhesion and scratch resistance on photo papers thanks to its well selected ingredients.

Drying Performance

Drying Performance

This property checks the time required for the dispersed ink on the media to be dried and is affected by the ability of the media to absorb the ink and the surface tension of the ink. Increasing the penetration rate to speed up drying has the negative side affect of reducing the blackness of the printout. Therefore, it is important to balance between these two. BCinks’s key know-how includes the optimum values of the blackness and penetration rate to satisfy the both.

Inter-color Bleeding

Inter-color Bleeding

Bleeding tends to occur when dye inks are used. Sometimes dye inks can bleed with pigment inks too. Bleeding performance is related to paper types and fibers so BCinks performs ink bleeding test on various papers. These thorough tests enable us to introduce inks that produces clear printout without bleeding.

DURABILITY

Water resistance

Water resistance

Life time of prints are gradually becoming more important. This increases the demand for pigment ink that is water resistant. BCinks can disperse pigment well to create smaller ink dots from head to guarantee the long lasting head durability and the wide color gamut.

Stability

Stability

Stability refers to stable performance of ink during its shelf life, and minimized batch difference of inks. BCinks ensures ink stability due to well mixed raw materials, and strict QC system in accordance with ISO9001 standard.

Light fastness

Color C.I. Lightfast Grade Average Particle Size (nm) Max Particle Size (nm)
Yellow P.Y. 74 7 - 8 ≤ 80nm ≤ 300nm
Magenta P.R. 122 7 - 8 ≤ 80nm ≤ 300nm
Magenta P.V. 19 6 - 7 ≤ 80nm ≤ 300nm
Cyan P.B.15:3 8 ≤ 80nm ≤ 300nm
Black P.B. 7 7 - 8 ≤ 80nm ≤ 300nm