1. Digital sublimation printing: a sustainable success story
Martial Blanc – FESPA Digital 2012
Sensient Inks Europe

2. Digital sublimation printing – a sustainable success story
Agenda
Short presentation of Sensient
Look back on the booming development of Digital Sublimation Printing
Key factors to this success
Future outlook
Pros and Cons of sublimation printing within current environment
Conclusion

3. Sensient Technologies Ltd.
Headquarter: Millwaukee (WI), USA
>3500 employees
70 locations in 30 countries
> 1.2 billions US$ turnover
Fields of activity:
Food & Beverage
Pharmaceuticals
Cosmetics
Personal &Home Care
Display Imaging
Industrial Colors
Inkjet &Specialty Inks 3

4. Sensient Imaging Technologies – Inks Europe
1988 Foundation of ECS (SICPA division)
Traditional sublimation inks
& Desensitizing inks
1992 Starting research
on inkjet sublimation inks
1998 First commercial sublimation ink
for piezo heads
2002 Joined Sensient umbrella
Today: Traditional sublimation inks (any printing technique) Inkjet sublimation inks Inkjet pigmented inks for textile Desensitizing inks 4

5. Success Story: why? Traditional Textile Printing*
27 Billion m2 (2009)
Growth 3%/year from 2010
Digital Textile Printing
250 Millon m2 (2009)
Growth 20%
Pigment 2%
Acid
10%
Reactive
27%
Reactive
28%
Disperse Direct 8%
Pigment
51%
Sublimation 4%
Disperse Direct
15%
Acid 3%
Sublimation
52%
* Figures from John Provost’ presentation, Textile conference FESPA 2011

6. Key factors to explain this success
Perfect fit with “l’Air du Temps”
Environmental
Dry process – No post washing
No need for treatment of water effluent
Low investment cost
Market conditions
Mass customization trend
Ever shortening run lengths per colorway [Stork report 1997] 6

7. Key factors to explain this success
Market conditions
Soft signage & Sportswear : new market demand
Health and Safety
If the fabric is Oekotex 100 compliant, the printed fabric also is!
Technical
Availability of good piezo printheads
Existing large format graphic printers were doing the job
Vivid colors even with only CMYK
Easy (dry) fixation process enabled production to take place virtually anywhere.
Polyester is a very standardized product not requiring any pre-treatment when decorated by sublimation printing 7

8. Pefect Fit for this Textile Printing Evolution
Conventional Industry:
“Print & Distribute”
Digital Industry:
“Distribute & Print”
                                                                             
Mass Production
Mass Customization

9. Future outlook
Faster IJ printers built around industrial printheads are currently speeding up the conversion from traditional to IJ in general, therefore the less digitalized textile segments to go digital 9

10. Which future for digital sublimation printing
Which future for digital sublimation printing? Is its success story sustainable outside sportswear and soft signage?
2009
Long-term future
What will be the market share of sublimation
When Traditional and Inkjet will have merged?
Trad.
Global
Textile
Printing +
…%? IJ
Pigment
Reactive
Acid
Disperse Direct
Sublimation
* Figures from John Provost’ presentation, Textile conference FESPA 2011 10

11. Digital Sublimation Printing: Pros
Environmental
Growing concerns about soft water supply in relationship to the current climate change speak in favor or a dry printing process
[1kg of polyester requires < 20l of water vs. >10’000l for 1kg of cotton]
Extreme case: shrinking of the Aral Sea due to excessive use of irrigation water 11

12. Digital Sublimation Printing: Pros
Health and Safety
Growing regulatory burden (e.g. REACH) is weighing on consumer product producers, and sublimation printing effortless delivers Oekotex 100 compliance.
Fabrics treated with flame retardant compound keep their properties after decoration by sublimation
Polyester is a very standardized material, the quality of which is stable and is not subject to climatic fluctuations, as experienced by cotton recently. 12

13. Digital Sublimation Printing: Cons
Polyester is not green!
Is the production of cotton much greener, bearing in mind the high amount of very often irrigation water required to grow the crop + the large use of fertilizers and pesticides?
Polyester make one smell bad!
Heritage from the 70s!
Microfibres introduced in the mid 80s
Breathing fabrics (GoreTex®) since mit 80s
The feel of polyester textile is bad!
Technical polyester drastically improved since the 70s
Cf. samples handed over to you 13

14. Digital Sublimation Printing: Cons
Sublimation dyes exhibit limited light fastness as compared to disperse direct or pigments.
True, but do we always need high light fastness?
E.g. a flag is often broken in less time than the color needs to fade…
Sublimation is used as a standard in home furnishing
Sublimation printing only prints single side – no penetration
It is possible to print directly with sublimation inks and obtain similar penetration as with other ink chemistry.
Fixation with dry heat - no steamer required
Sublimated polyester cannot be washed above 60°C
Is it not a good thing for the environment bearing in mind that polyester does not required hot water to be properly washed? 14

15. Conclusions
As a late entrant among the textile printing techniques, sublimation printing on textile was a niche neglected or rather ignored by the rest of the textile printing industry.
Now that the visibility of sublimation printing has vastly increased thanks to digital printing, the intrinsic strengths of this textile printing technique should make possible to sustain the success experienced to date. 15

16. Thank you 16