Fabric Surface Characteristics and their Impact on Digital Textile Printing Quality of PET Fabrics

Pretreatment and yarn type alter the characteristics of fabric surfaces and impact the quality of inkjet digital printing including colorfastness, color shade, colorfulness, and color strength. Specifically, printed pigments are subject to crocking due to physical attachment on a fiber surface without diffusing into the fibers, which increases color transfer to another fabric. This remains a challenge in obtaining high colorfastness as well as full color shade, colorfulness, and color strength. Thus, this study investigated and quantitatively analyzed the effects of pretreatment and yarn type on shade, colorfulness, color strength, and crockfastness. Fabric wettability was also observed to examine the impact on printing quality.