The chemistry of receiving polymers greatly affects the photo-permanence of dye based ink jet images. Earlier work has shown that in some cases the dye – polymer interactions lead to varying degrees of dye aggregation that can significantly improve dye photo permanece. Factors other than the solvating power of polymer for the dye also play a role in image photo stablity. Introducing comonomers into the polymer backbone can greatly affect the degree of observed dye aggregation and photo stability. The changes in degree of aggregation and photo stability do not necessarily correlate with each other, and a decrease in aggregation does not always lead to a similar decrease in permanence.This report describes an attempt to relate changes in polymer morphology, as detected by thermal analysis, with dye photopermanence. Specifically, co-polymers with ionic and non-ionic segments will be evaluated to determine if differences in dye aggregation or stability correlate with the possible presence of micellular domains or other morphology characteristics of the co-polymers.
Andrew Naisby, Joseph C. Suhadolnik, Donna Pennant, "Possible Impact of Polymer Morphology on the Light Stability of Ink Jet Graphics" in Proc. IS&T Int'l Conf. on Digital Printing Technologies (NIP19), 2003, pp 454 - 457, https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2169-4451.2003.19.1.art00108_1