EP1282525A1

EP1282525A1 - Textile fabric for the base structure of printing blankets

Info

Publication number: EP1282525A1
Application number: EP01940419A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Klaus Füssmann; Brigitte Hiemenz; Peter Klenner
Original assignee: BAMBERGER KALIKO GmbH
Current assignee: BAMBERGER KALIKO GmbH
Priority date: 2000-05-09
Filing date: 2001-05-08
Publication date: 2003-02-12
Anticipated expiration: 2021-05-08
Also published as: WO2001085465A1; US20030148682A1; DE50101082D1; EP1282525B1; DE10022471A1; DE10022471C2

Abstract

The invention relates to a textile fabric for the base structure of printing blankets, which is characterised in that the fibres of the fabric are fixed by means of an organic film-forming polymer, which reduces the elastic properties of the fibre material and which is formed by treatment of the fibres with an aqueous solution, dispersion, emulsion or suspension of a polymer pre-cursor and subsequent cross-linking. The invention further relates to a method for the production of said textile fabric.

Description

Textile fabrics for the substructure of printing blankets.

The present invention is directed to a textile material which is suitable for use in the substructure of printing blankets.

Printing blankets are used as important functional components in various printing processes. Due to the high physical requirements, the construction of such printing blankets is preferably multi-layered; it consists of different components. The substructure, a pressure-elastic middle layer (elasticity is a prerequisite for printing) and a cover layer can be mentioned as essential here. The substructure usually consists of a doubled fabric on which a rubber layer or the like is applied. There is a single-layer fabric layer on top, which is covered by a cover layer. The attached FIG. 1 shows a cross section through such a printing blanket.

The substructure is responsible for the reinforcement of the printing blanket. So far, cotton fabrics have been used for this. Since the high mechanical stress requires that the elongation of the fabric used is greatly reduced and the force-elongation behavior is narrowly specified, the cotton has previously been extremely stretched in such a way that an elongation behavior of <1% at 500 N has been achieved (Web width of the test specimen: 50 mm in the tear testing machine). Such drawing processes are accompanied by a large loss of width, which can be up to 20% or even 30% depending on the fabric. This means a corresponding loss of end product, based on the area of the starting material. In addition, the fibers used in the fabric tend to deform due to the ongoing printing process. It. there is a loss of thickness in the range of a few hundredths of a millimeter (so-called sinking), which has a negative effect on the printing result.

After stretching, the cotton fabric must be calendered in order to make it uniform in thickness and, if necessary, to reduce it in a controlled manner. The calender effect remains, however, only for a short time, since the fabric wants to recover from the mechanically incorporated forces of the stretching and calendering process. It was therefore previously necessary to coordinate and couple this process with the further manufacture of the printing blanket. It was therefore not possible to manufacture the fabric intended for the substructure of the printing blankets in stock quantities. In addition, in order to counteract the recovery effect, it has been calendered to a smaller thickness than the required final thickness. This may have resulted in fiber damage that is undesirable.

The object of the present invention is to avoid the disadvantages of the prior art and to provide textile fabrics, in particular fabrics, which are suitable as or for the substructure of printing blankets.

The object is achieved by providing textile fabrics whose fibers have been solidified with an organic film-forming polymer which reduces the elastic properties of the fiber material. The polymer can be formed by applying an aqueous solution, dispersion, emulsion or suspension of a precursor of the polymer to the fibers and then crosslinking. Preferred embodiments are given in claims 2 to 10. A method for producing these textile fabrics is also proposed.

It was found that the textile fabrics remain essentially dimensionally stable in the treatment according to the invention. After the polymers have been crosslinked, a chemically bonded fabric is created that fulfills the requirements for further processing into a printing blanket with regard to the force-elongation behavior and the improved fiber stability.

different monomers can be used, both homopolymers and copolymers, alone or in mixtures with one another, can be used.

Preferably the polymer is applied to the fibers of the textile

Fabric applied so that it penetrates the fiber and envelops it as completely as possible. The fact that the fibers, yarn and, if appropriate, fabric cavities are filled and coated with the polymers gives them high rigidity. The stretch potential resulting from fiber, yarn twist and possibly fabric incorporation is permanently frozen. In a first embodiment of the invention, a relatively low-viscosity formulation of the polymer or of precursors of the polymer, such as monomers or prepolymers, is used to impregnate the fiber. For example, recipes with a proportion of approximately 10-60% by weight, preferably approximately 15-40% by weight, more preferably approximately 20-30% by weight and very particularly preferably approximately 25% by weight are suitable. Part of solids or part of polymer (precursors). Such formulations are commercially available ready for use. It is advantageous to continue adding a wetting agent, since this results in better penetration of the fibers. The wetting agent can be present in an amount of a few percent, for example 2% by weight. If appropriate, the solution, dispersion, emulsion or suspension of the polymer contains suitable additives, such as polymerization initiators for the later crosslinking of the polymers and / or other auxiliaries. The rest is solvent, preferably essentially or exclusively water.

The recipe can be applied on a finishing pad. After the mixture has been applied, the material is dried, preferably in the stenter, e.g. at elevated temperatures.

If no further application work step is to take place, the polymer is crosslinked by customary methods, for example thermally or by the action of light. Alternatively, the textile material to be treated is treated with a solution, dispersion, emulsion or suspension of the polymer which is more viscous than that of the recipe mentioned above as preferred, with which a penetration of the fibers is achieved. The treatment here is carried out by brushing on one side or on both sides of the fabric, which can in turn be clamped in a clamping frame for this purpose. A recipe with a higher polymer content is used for this. For example, the polymer content can be 20-80% by weight, preferably 25-40% by weight and very particularly preferably about 35% by weight. Fillers such as talc can also be added. It is also possible to increase the viscosity of this formulation by adding a thickener. The formulation also advantageously contains a defoaming or deaerating agent. This treatment is preferably carried out unilaterally.

The recipe can be applied to the tissue, for example, using the air knife method. The material is then dried, preferably with increasing temperatures. If thermal crosslinking is provided, the drying process can be linked to the crosslinking process by slowly or gradually adjusting the temperature to the required final value.

In a particularly preferred embodiment of the present invention, the abovementioned methods for polymer application are both used in succession, the thin-liquid formulation preferably being used first. The textile material is then preferably dried, but the polymer has not yet been crosslinked. The entire polymer material can then be crosslinked after the higher-viscosity polymer formulation applied to one or both sides has dried. In this variant of the method, treatment on one side only with the more viscous polymer solution, dispersion, emulsion or suspension is often particularly advantageous. Since it is desired that a large part of the formulation penetrates into the cavities of the yarns or the fabric, the application as described above with a foulard and air knife is particularly preferred.

The textile fabric produced as described above can be calendered if necessary, e.g. to set or reduce the thickness to a desired value.

The textile material treated according to the invention is more stable from the inside than conventionally treated textiles treated for the substructure of printing blankets. This may be due to the fact that the tissue cavities of the material according to the invention are largely or completely filled. This improves the mechanical resilience, e.g. in terms of sinking.

As already mentioned above, a doubled fabric is usually used for the substructure of the printing blankets. So far, the duplication was usually carried out with the help of a rubber solution in an organic solvent. As is known, operations using organic solvents require special precautionary measures such as separate exhaust air routing and post-combustion of the liquid that is generated as waste. The present invention now makes it possible to dispense with duplication with the aid of a rubber solution and to replace it with aqueous systems. Because the textile material treated according to the invention can be used on conventional laminating machines e.g. with watery

Coat and double-layer lamination adhesive. This may be due to the fact that the polymer applied has an adhesion-promoting effect in further coating processes.

As tests by the applicant have shown, the textile fabric according to the invention can be calendered without the thickness which has been set thereby changing later, even over longer periods of time and / or in the case of others Processing steps. The calender effect is therefore a permanent effect in substructures for printing blankets according to the invention. Even a steaming process that follows experimentally, which promotes the swelling of the fibers and should therefore lead to an increase in thickness, has no influence on the thickness achieved during calendering. This has a number of advantages. This means that calendering can take place regardless of the location and time of printing blanket production and in larger batch sizes, the final thickness can be planned more precisely, and unnecessary fiber damage is avoided.

The invention will be explained in more detail below with the aid of examples:

example 1

Production of a fabric suitable for a printing blanket substructure

Fabric was used which is usually used after the mechanical stretching for the production of printing blankets. It was 100% cotton, super combed with the setting: 19.5 / 21.0 28x2 / 28.0 cm / Nm; made of spliced yarn, knot-free, hand-cleaned and rolled. The fabric width was 262 cm.

The fabric was washed on a Brugman wide washer. As a result of the cooking shrinkage caused by cotton, the width was reduced to 249 cm. The fabric pretreated in this way was treated on a Brückner finishing tenter with the following recipe:

50 parts of Atepol B-A 75 from Dr. Th. Bohemian

50 parts water 2 parts Lavotan DSU Chem. Fabrik Tübingen

Atepol B-A75 has a glass transition temperature of 30 ° C. The batch was applied to a finishing pad with a liquor absorption of 105% and then dried in a stenter at 120 ° C.

The following recipe was then coated on one side in a further operation:

10 parts of Schaumex B-ES from Dr. Th. Böhme 100 parts Atepol B-A 75 Dr. Th. Böhme 20 parts talc 10 parts water 1.2 parts ammonia solution 25% 5 parts thickener BOL Dr. Th. Bohme

The approach was applied to the tissue on one side using the air doctor blade method. The wet edition was 55g / sqm. The temperature control in the stenter was increasing 120/130/140/150/150/150 ° C until the cross-linking temperature of 150 ° C was reached.

The overall loss of width due to the treatment was approximately

7.8%.

Example 2 Calendering a fabric according to the invention

A fabric produced as in Example 1 with an initial thickness of 0.40 mm was calendered to a thickness of 0.34 mm. The value remained stable after a rewinding process at 0.34 mm thickness. A sample of this product was steamed free of tension, whereby the thickness of 0.34 mm was not changed. The specified maximum thickness of this fabric is 0.35 mm.

The two examples show that the use of film-forming polymers with a glass transition temperature of 30 ° C. leads to excellent results. Comparative example

Calendering of cotton fabric previously used for printing blankets

Pre-stretched cotton fabric with an initial thickness of 0.30 mm was calendered to 0.23 mm with line pressure of 250 N / mm. After a subsequent rewinding, the thickness recovered to 0.28 mm, which was 0.03 mm above the specified maximum dimensional thickness. The calendering process had to be repeated immediately before further processing based on the batch size.

Claims

Claims:

1. Textile fabric for the substructure of printing blankets, characterized in that the fibers of the structure are solidified with an organic film-forming polymer, which reduces the elastic properties of the fiber material, and which can be obtained by applying an aqueous solution, dispersion, emulsion or suspension of a precursor of the polymer on the fibers and subsequent crosslinking.

2. Textile fabric according to claim 1, characterized in that the polymer has a glass transition temperature of> 20 ° C.

3. Textile fabric according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the fibers are coated and / or filled with the organic polymer and in addition on one or both sides of the structure, a further layer of the same or another organic, film-forming polymer without elastic properties is applied.

4. Textile fabric according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the polymer

Contains poly (meth) crylate groups.

5. Textile fabric according to claim 3 or 4, characterized in that the polymer applied to one or both sides of the structure in a mixture with a filler, preferably talc, and / or one

Thickener, especially polymerized acrylic acid, is present.

6. Textile fabric according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the polymer with which the fibers are coated / or filled, in an amount of

10-50% by weight, preferably 20-30% by weight, based on the weight of the untreated fibers, is present.

7. Textile fabric according to one of claims 2 to 6, characterized in that a polymer layer is applied only on one side of the structure and this layer in an amount of 10-100 g / m, preferably 15-30 g / m ² , is available.

8. Textile fabric according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that it is a fabric.

9. Textile fabric according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the fibers of the structure are construction wool, cellulose or synthetic fibers or mixed fibers which contain such fibers as components.

10. Textile fabric according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that it consists of two fiber layers which are connected with the aid of an aqueous laminating adhesive.

11. A method for producing a fabric according to one of claims 1 to 10, characterized in that

(a) the fibers of the structure are brought into contact with an aqueous solution, dispersion, emulsion or suspension which contains a crosslinkable, film-forming organic polymer and / or its precursor (s) and optionally a wetting agent, the polymer being in the crosslinked state reduces the elastic properties of the fiber material,

(b) the structure at a temperature between

Room temperature and a temperature below the crosslinking temperature of the polymer are dried,

(c) if necessary on one side of the fabric, are brought into contact with an aqueous solution, dispersion, emulsion or suspension which contains the same or another crosslinkable, film-forming organic polymer or its precursors together with a filler and / or a thickener and, if appropriate contains a defoamer, and

(d) the structure is then optionally dried or partially dried at a temperature between room temperature and a temperature below the crosslinking temperature of the polymer, whereupon

(e) the polymer and / or its precursor (s) is crosslinked.

12. The method according to claim 11, characterized in that the structure after crosslinking the polymer and / or its precursors is passed over one or more calender rolls.

13. The method according to claim 11 or 12, wherein the solution, dispersion, emulsion or suspension in step (a)

Contains 10-60% by weight, preferably 20-30% by weight polymer and 0 to 5% by weight wetting agent and / or the solution, dispersion, emulsion or suspension in stage (b) 20-80% by weight , preferably 25-40 wt .-% polymer and / or its precursor, 0-10 wt .-% defoamer, 0-20 wt .-% talc and 0-5 wt .-% thickener contains.

14. A method for producing a textile fabric according to one of claims 1 to 10, characterized in that two layers of fibers treated according to one of claims 11 to 13 are doubled with the aid of an aqueous laminating agent.