In this article, the dynamics of droplet impingement, spreading, absorption, penetration, curing and/or evaporation are discussed for different ink jet ink classes. Both dye and pigment based aqueous inks are included, as well as solvent or eco-solvent inks, and UV-curing inks.The fundamental physicochemical rules determining the dynamics can be very dependent from ink to ink, and are compared.After impact there is a fast spreading phase that takes into account the evolution of the kinetic energy of the droplet to forced spreading on the receiver. Later on, diffusion or capillary wicking is possible, and is depending upon the nature of the substrate. The speed of these processes can be influenced by the presence of dyes or pigments in the inks. After absorption/penetration, the carrier liquid can evaporate leading to the final equilibrium condition.For (eco)-solvent inks the evaporation is much more important compared to the other penetration/absorption processes, so that it can not be easily separated into different independent time-scales.For UV-curing inks, a polymerisation reaction leads to solidification of the ink. For that reason the absorption or diffusion is not important, and has to be replaced by a reaction process.
G. Desie, G. Deroover, F. De Voeght, R. Claes, "Fundamental Mechanisms in Ink Media Interactions for Aqueous, UV-Curing and Solvent Based Inks" in Proc. IS&T Int'l Conf. on Digital Printing Technologies (NIP20), 2004, pp 774 - 779, https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2169-4451.2004.20.1.art00055_2