1. An ink composition which is suitable for ink jet printing and comprising methanol, polyvinylpyrrolidone, a water-soluble dye, and a surfactant, wherein, if water is present, it is present in an amount less than 10% by weight of the ink composition.
2. An ink composition which is suitable for ink jet printing and comprising methanol, a water-soluble resin, a water-soluble dye, and a surfactant, wherein if water is present, it is present in an amount less than 10% by weight of the ink composition, wherein the water-soluble resin is selected from the group consisting of polyvinylalcohol, carboxymethylcellulose, poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline), and polymers based on acrylamide, and any combination thereof.
3. The ink composition of claim 1, wherein the polyvinylpyrrolidone has a weight average molecular weight of from about 2,000 to about 30,000.
4. The ink composition of claim 3, wherein the polyvinylpyrrolidone has a weight average molecular weight of about 5,000 to about 15,000.
5. The ink composition of claim 1, wherein the water-soluble dye is selected from the group consisting of FD&C Blue No. 1, FD&C Blue No. 2, FD&C Green No. 3, FD&C Red No. 40, C.I. Food Blue 5, and C.I. Food Red 7, and any combination thereof.
6. The ink composition of claim 1, which is free or substantially free of water.
7. The ink composition of claim 1, wherein the surfactant is selected from the group consisting of anionic surfactants, cationic surfactants, nonionic surfactants, and amphoteric surfactants, and any combination thereof.
8. An ink composition which is suitable for ink jet printing and comprising methanol, a water-soluble resin, a water-soluble dye, and a surfactant, wherein, if water is present, it is present in an amount less than 50% by weight of the ink composition, wherein the surfactant is diethylhexyl sodium sulfosuccinate.
9. The ink composition of claim 1, which includes water, wherein water is present in an amount less than 10% by weight of the ink composition.
10. The ink composition of claim 1, wherein methanol is present in an amount of from about 50 to about 90% by weight, the polyvinylpyrrolidone is present in an amount of from about 10 to about 35% by weight, the water-soluble dye is present in an amount of from about 0.5 to about 5% by weight, and the surfactant is present in an amount of from about 0.1 to about 5% by weight, of the ink composition.
11. An ink composition which is suitable for ink jet printing and comprising methanol, polyvinylpyrrolidone, and a water-soluble dye, wherein, if water is present, it is present in an amount less than 10% by weight of the ink composition.
12. An ink composition which is suitable for ink jet printing and comprising an organic solvent having a boiling point less than 78\xb0 C., polyvinylpyrrolidone, and a water-soluble dye which is also soluble in the organic solvent, wherein, if water is present, it is present in an amount less than 10% by weight of the ink composition.
13. An ink composition which is suitable for ink jet printing and comprising an organic solvent, polyvinylpyrrolidone, and a water-soluble dye which is also soluble in the organic solvent, wherein, if water is present, it is present in an amount less than 10% by weight of the ink composition, and the ink composition is free or substantially free of ethanol.
14. The ink composition of claim 12, wherein the organic solvent is methanol.
15. The ink composition of claim 13, wherein the organic solvent is methanol.
16. A method for ink jet printing on a diaper which is fabricated from component materials as a composite construction comprising a substantially fluid impervious layer having in association therewith a fluid absorbent layer adapted to be in operative contact with a wearer of the diaper, which method comprises applying droplets of an ink composition to a selected one of the component materials thereof, the ink composition being applied by an ink jet printing technique which applies discrete droplets of the ink composition through at least one nozzle orifice to individually selected positions on the selected component material so as to form a desired image on the selected component of the diaper, wherein the ink composition comprises methanol, polyvinylpyrrolidone, a water-soluble dye, and optionally a surfactant, and wherein if water is present, it is present in an amount less than 10% by weight of the ink composition.
17. In a process for ink jet printing on a diaper fabric having a composite construction comprising a substantially fluid impervious layer formed from a polymeric material and having in association therewith a fluid absorbent layer formed from a cellulosic fibrous material which fabric is subsequently to be formed into a diaper adapted to be worn upon the person with said absorbent layer being in operative contact with the person so as to absorb body fluids therefrom, which process comprises continuously feeding the elements of the composite fabric to a process in which they are unified into the composite fabric, the improvement which comprises forming an image from a series of dots on that face of the polymeric material to be in operative contact with said absorbent layer by applying thereto an ink composition by an ink jet printer located intermediate the feed of said material and its incorporation into the composite fabric, and further comprising varying the image formed on the face of the polymeric material by varying the arrangement of the series of dots being applied by the ink jet printer while continuing to feed the elements of composite fabric to the process, wherein the ink composition comprises methanol, polyvinylpyrrolidone, a water-soluble dye, and optionally a surfactant, and wherein if water is present, it is present in an amount less than 10% by weight of the ink composition.
18. A method for ink jet printing on a diaper fabric having a composite construction which includes a substantially fluid impervious layer formed from a synthetic resilient sheet material having opposed faces and having in association therewith a fluid absorbent layer formed from a cellulosic fibrous material, which fabric is subsequently to be formed into a diaper adapted to be worn upon the person with said absorbent layer being contactable with the person so as to absorb body fluids therefrom, which method comprises feeding the components of the composite fabric to a process in which they are unified into the composite fabric, and forming an image on a selected one of said components by applying droplets of an ink composition to selected positions on said selected component by an ink jet printer which applies discrete droplets of the ink composition through at least one nozzle orifice to an individually selected position on said component so as to form a desired image on said component as said component is fed to the unification process, wherein the ink composition comprises methanol, polyvinylpyrrolidone, a water-soluble dye, and optionally a surfactant, and wherein if water is present, it is present in an amount less than 10% by weight of the ink composition.
19. The method of claim 16, wherein the ink composition is applied through a binary array print head.
20. A method for ink jet printing onto a substrate comprising projecting a stream of ink droplets to said substrate and controlling the direction of said ink droplets so that the droplets form the desired printed image on the substrate, wherein said ink droplets are formed from the ink composition of claim 1.
21. A method for ink jet printing onto a substrate comprising projecting a stream of ink droplets to said substrate and controlling the direction of said ink droplets so that the droplets form the desired printed image on the substrate, wherein said ink droplets are formed from the ink composition of claim 11.
22. A method for ink jet printing onto a substrate comprising projecting a stream of ink droplets to said substrate and controlling the direction of said ink droplets so that the droplets form the desired printed image on the substrate, wherein said ink droplets are formed from the ink composition of claim 12.
23. A method for ink jet printing onto a substrate comprising projecting a stream of ink droplets to said substrate and controlling the direction of said ink droplets so that the droplets form the desired printed image on the substrate, wherein said ink droplets are formed from the ink composition of claim 13.
24. The method of claim 20, wherein the substrate is a fabric.
25. The method of claim 24, wherein the fabric is porous.
26. An ink composition which is suitable for ink jet printing and comprising methanol, polyvinylpyrrolidone, and a water-soluble dye, wherein the ink composition is free or substantially free of water.
27. The ink composition of claim 26, which further includes a surfactant.
28. The ink composition of claim 26, wherein the polyvinylpyrrolidone has a weight average molecular weight of from about 2,000 to about 30,000.
29. The ink composition of claim 26, wherein the water-soluble dye is selected from the group consisting of FD&C Blue No. 1, FD&C Blue No. 2, FD&C Green No. 3, FD&C Red No. 40, C.I. Food Blue 5, and C.I. Food Red 7, and any combination thereof.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
1. A method of generating scalable patterned features on a substrate, said method comprising:
(a) ejecting a succession of droplets;
(b) applying a force to the droplets in a manner such that the droplets travel along a designated path;
(c) altering the properties of droplets in a manner so as to adjust the size of the droplets from micrometer to nanometer; and
(d) depositing droplets on the substrate to generate patterned features on the substrate.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the patterned features are three-dimensional.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the droplets comprise colloids or liquefied metals of one or more materials.
4. The method of claim 3, wherein the material is selected from the group consisting of metal, ceramics, fiber glass, semiconductor material, polymers, bio-media, a precursor solution for sol-gel process and a combination thereof.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein droplets are deposited via hydrophobic or hydrophilic patterns.
6. The method of claim 1 further comprising repeating (a), (b) andor (c) at least once.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein the droplet comprises polymer fluid.
8. The method of any of claim 1 further comprising curing or gelation of the droplets after performing (a), (b), (c), andor (d).
9. The method of claim 8, wherein curing is carried out by adding chemical additives, exposing to ultraviolet radiation, electron beam andor heat.
10. The method of claim 1, wherein the ejecting step comprises selectively applying a force to a stream of fluid such that the stream breaks into a succession of droplets.
11. The method of claim 10, wherein the ejecting further comprises varying the properties of the force to control the characteristics of the droplets.
12. The method of claim 11, wherein the ejecting step comprises providing a piezoelectric nozzle, wherein a piezoelectric disk is located in the nozzle.
13. The method of claim 12, wherein the ejecting step further comprises applying a force to the disk and the force is controlled to adjust the size and the ejecting rate of droplets.
14. The method of claim 12, wherein the ejecting step further comprises controlling the orifice diameter to adjust the dimension of the droplets.
15. The method of claim 12, wherein the size of the nozzle is in a range of about 100 microns to 1 micron.
16. The method of claim 1, wherein the ejecting step provides droplets in the size of microns.
17. The method of claim 1, wherein the applying step comprises charging the droplets.
18. The method of claim 1, wherein the altering step comprises applying a heating or laser source to the droplets.
19. The method of claim 1, wherein the droplets are charged and the depositing step comprises deflecting charged droplets to generate patterned features on the substrate.
20. An apparatus for generating scalable patterned features on a substrate, said apparatus comprising:
(1) a means for droplet forming and ejecting a succession of droplets;
(2) a means for altering the properties of droplets in a manner so as to adjust the size of the droplets from micrometer to nanometer; and
(3) one or more stream deflectors to control the direction of the droplets to generate patterned features on the substrate.
21. The apparatus of claim 20 wherein the means for droplet forming comprises a continuous ink jet, drop-on-demand inkjet or thermal inkjet method.
22. The apparatus of claim 21 wherein the means of droplet forming comprises a piezoelectric nozzle or heating element assembly.
23. The apparatus of claim 22 wherein the piezoelectric nozzle assembly comprises a piezoelectric disk.
24. The apparatus of claim 20 wherein said means for altering the properties of droplets comprises a charge tunnel and a quadrupole assembly.
25. The apparatus of claim 24 wherein said quadrupole assembly comprises four electrodes wherein the electrodes are arranged with their axes at right angles to each other.
26. The apparatus of claim 24 wherein said means for altering the properties of droplets further comprise a heating, laser source, or a combination thereof.
27. The apparatus of claim 20 wherein said deflectors comprise two plates and the plates are charged with high voltage.
28. An apparatus for generating scalable patterned features on a substrate, said apparatus comprising:
(a) a continuous ink jet, wherein the continuous ink jet comprises a piezoelectric nozzle assembly;
(b) a charge tunnel and a quadrupole assembly, wherein said quadrupole assembly comprises four electrodes and the electrodes are arranged with their axes at right angles to each other; and
(c) one or more stream deflectors to control the direction of the droplets to generate patterned features on the substrate.