Assessment of the jettability of inks is essential in the process of developing ink formulations and in the process of verifying suitability of inks for print-head assemblies. Currently, evaluation of jettability of inks has largely relied on testing the inks in the print-head assemblies concerned, which, whilst being a reliable method, does have its drawbacks. Thus, there is a high level of risk of the inks of poor performance properties damaging the printhead. This paper describes a method for the assessment of the jettability of inks through the creation of a “jettability plot” using easily measurable properties such as viscosity and surface tension of the ink. Thus, for each print-head assembly, a jettability plot can be created which contains jettable and un-jettable regions. Consequently, the assessment of the jettability of an ink can be achieved by measuring the viscosity and surface tension of the ink followed by determination of which region the viscosity/surface tension combination falls in. Various application examples are included in this paper.
Lin Long, He Weidong, "A Novel Method for the Evaluation of Jettability" in Proc. IS&T Int'l Conf. on Digital Printing Technologies and Digital Fabrication (NIP24), 2008, pp 129 - 129, https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2169-4451.2008.24.1.art00032_1