BACKGROUND

Textile is a flexible material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibers which form yarn or thread. Textiles have an assortment of uses in the daily life, such as clothing, bags, baskets, upholstered furnishings, window shades, towels, coverings for tables, beds, and other flat surfaces, and in art. Textiles are used in many traditional crafts such as sewing, quilting and embroidery. The coloration of the textile includes often the dyeing and printing. The dyeing is to apply colorant to the whole fabric network including yarn and thread. The printing is to place the specific design pattern in a special area under the design. Screen printing is a traditional method for fabric textile printing over decades. With the rapid development of digital printing technology, the inkjet printing is increasing its application range and volume in textile printing. The inkjet printing method, such as thermal inkjet and piezoelectric inkjet, dye sublimation inkjet and the alike have been under the investigation and some of the technology have successfully been commercialized in the printing industry.

With these technologies, it is apparent that the image quality of printed images is strongly dependent on the construction of the recording media used. Pre-treatment compositions or coatings can be applied to various textile media to improve printing characteristics and attributes of a printed image.

