The liquid ejecting apparatus is provided with a liquid ejecting head and is an apparatus which ejects (discharges) various types of liquid from the liquid ejecting head. Examples of the liquid ejecting apparatus include image recording apparatuses such as an ink jet printer (referred to below simply as a printer) or an ink jet plotter; however, recently, the invention has been applied to various types of manufacturing apparatuses which take advantage of the feature that it is possible to accurately land extremely small amounts of liquid at predetermined positions. For example, the invention is applied to display manufacturing apparatuses which manufacture color filters for liquid crystal displays or the like, electrode forming apparatuses which form electrodes for organic EL (Electro Luminescence) displays, FEDs (field emission displays), or the like, and chip manufacturing apparatuses which manufacture biochips (biochemical elements). Then, ink is ejected in liquid form by a recording head for an image recording apparatus and a solution of each coloring material of R (Red), G (Green), and B (Blue) is ejected by a coloring material ejecting head for a display manufacturing apparatus. In addition, electrode material is ejected in liquid form by an electrode material ejecting head for an electrode forming apparatus and a solution of bio-organic matter is ejected by a bio-organic matter ejecting head for a chip manufacturing apparatus.
A printer which is one type of the liquid ejecting apparatus described above is provided with an ink jet recording head which is one type of liquid ejecting head (referred to below simply as a recording head). The recording head is configured so as to eject ink from a nozzle by generating pressure variations in ink inside a pressure chamber which is a part of a flow path of a head inner section by driving a pressure generating means such as a piezoelectric element by selectively applying a driving waveform (driving pulses) to the pressure generating means, and controlling the pressure variations.
The printer described above includes printers which are used in printing applications using a transfer textile printing system. Out of these transfer textile printing systems, one which is known as sublimation transfer textile printing is a method where a pattern or the like is printed by ejecting dye ink with respect to a transfer sheet using the printer and the pattern or the like which is printed on the transfer sheet is transferred to a transfer object (for example, a fabric made of polyester or the like). In more detail, by heating the transfer sheet and the transfer object in an overlaid state from both sides using heaters or the like, the coloring material of the dye ink on the side of the transfer sheet is sublimated by the heat to permeate to the transfer object side and subsequently transferred thereto by cooling (for example, refer to PTL 1 and PTL 2). According to such a system, textile printing is possible using a printer of the related art while suppressing costs.
In order to satisfy the requirements for inks for textile printing, the ink composition which is used in the transfer textile printing system described above (appropriately referred to below as ink for textile printing or simply as ink) includes a dispersion dye and a dispersing agent and a surfactant is also added in order to increase the permeation with respect to the transfer object by lowering the surface tension. Due to this, the ink composition has characteristics which are suitable for textile printing; however, there is a tendency for the surface tension of the ink for textile printing to be low in comparison with aqueous inks which are typically used in the printers described above.