Sublimation paper“Fast dry”or “Quick dry”, The drying time thing

Due to the advantages like low-cost, environmental,easy-handle, sublimation transfer plays a more and more important role in textile industry. Many apparel factories now are replacing the traditional dying with sublimation transfer.

Actually at the beginning , the sublimation transfer is only for small production, but later large format sublimation became more and more popular. But there’s a problem occurred is that the production efficiency is not as fast as traditional dying, due to the sublimation paper couldn’t dry completely in time, even though the sublimation printers/plotters could print very fast, this issue slower the production process. So the sublimation transfer paper manufacturer started to research and update the technology, especially the sublimation coating formula, to help the dye sublimation paper drying faster. Now this problem is solved perfectly, all the sublimation paper in the market is the “fast dry” or”quick dry” type. 

So today, we will try to explain this technology with all the sublimation users. 

Sublimation coating is a functional part of sublimation paper, it plays several important roles at the same time, like absorb the sublimation ink, separate the sublimation dye and the base paper to prevent the sublimation dye from penetrating into the base paper, and absorb the water in the sublimation ink. The third function is the drying process. 

In sublimation coating, there is a part named “water removal layer”, this part helps dealing with the drying of the paper, after the sublimation paper is printed. We use water-based sublimation ink, means the carrier is water. Only when the water is gone, all the sublimation dyes stay at the surface, the sublimation transfer result will be as good as you expected. That’s why we always emphasis that the sublimation paper should be completely dry when you transfer it, otherwise the transfer result will not be good, because all the sublimation dye is unable to transferred to the textile when the paper is still wet. 

Then how the “water removal layer” works ?  

There are many small holes in the water removal layer, after the ink receiving layer absorbs the sublimation ink, those small holes in the water removal layer, they will absorb the water or solvent (if use solvent based sublimation ink) quickly, to help the paper drying very fast. Those small holes are round, or like balls, the diameter is 0.3-2um. According to our research, the round balls could help absorb the water or solvent the most than other shapes, that why all bro-sis sublimation paper adopt this type of formula. 

The content of the water removal layer is about 2-3 grams. It can be too much or too less. If too less, then it can not absorb the water or solvent in time, then the paper dries very slowly. It also can not be too much, because if there are too much balls, they will absorb the sublimation dye after they absorb all the waters or solvents, then those sublimation dyes are unable to be transferred, the transfer result will not be very good. We have one type of sublimation paper, named “instant dry”, it dries faster than the”fast dry” type, but the transfer efficiency is not as good as “fast dry”, is because the water removal layer is more than 2-3 grams. That’s how it works . 

With this beautiful solution, all our sublimation papers don’t have the drying problems, including our tacky sublimation paper 100grams. On the other hand, more and more clients are using the high speed MS JP4 ,MS JP7 or Reggiani with jumbol roll paper 1000mts, 3000mts, our fast dry sublimation paper 100gsm also works pretty good. Now in china, there are 7 MS JP7 printers, they are all using our sublimation paper 100gsm, 1000 meters per roll. If you want to have a try, contact us directly !