JP2688503B2 - Sublimation type thermal transfer material - Google Patents

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a sublimation-type thermal transfer-receiving member used in combination with a thermal transfer recording medium having a transfer layer containing a thermal sublimable dye.

[Prior Art] In the sublimation type thermal transfer recording method, a transfer material to which a polyester resin or the like is applied as a receiving layer for dyeing a synthetic paper such as polypropylene, polyethylene terephthalate or polystyrene is used as a substrate. There is. However, since these synthetic papers used as a substrate have dyeing power by themselves, when a dye is thermally transferred onto such a transfer-receiving material to form an image, it cannot be stored for a long time. The dye in the layer migrates to the substrate. As a result, the density of the transferred image may be reduced, or "blurring" or "deviation" may occur, and the image quality may be degraded.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] It is an object of the present invention to provide a sublimation-type thermal transfer recording material to be transferred which does not cause such deterioration of image quality due to transfer of a dye to a substrate.

[Means for Solving the Problems] The present inventors have made repeated studies in order to solve the above problems. To solve this problem, a specific resin is provided between the dye receiving layer and the substrate. It has been found that providing a barrier layer is effective, and has reached the present invention.

That is, the present invention is a transfer layer having a dye receiving layer capable of dyeing a sublimable dye on a substrate, and a barrier layer for preventing diffusion of the dye by a styrene-maleic acid ester resin between the receiving layer and the substrate. It is a sublimation type transfer target material for thermal transfer.

Examples of the ester group of the styrene-maleic acid ester resin used in the present invention include methyl, ethyl, n-propyl, iso-propyl, n-butyl, sec-butyl, tert-
Butyl, n-amyl, n-hexyl, cyclohexyl,
Allyl, benzyl, phenyl and the like can be mentioned.

These resins used as the barrier layer in the present invention are not dyed by heat even at all, and are excellent in adhesiveness to the substrate and the receiving layer, and thus are most suitable as the barrier layer.

Such a styrene-maleic acid ester resin can be easily obtained by simply mixing and heating a styrene-maleic anhydride copolymer and an alcohol, and can be directly applied to a substrate to form a barrier layer. In addition, a large amount of reaction product
It is also possible to form the barrier layer by adding it to hexane and pulverizing it, then dissolving it in another solvent such as tetrahydrofuran or methyl ethyl ketone and applying it.

As the resin constituting the dye receiving layer, for example, a polyester resin, an acrylic resin, a vinyl chloride resin, a polyamide resin, an epoxy resin or the like is used.

Further, in the present invention, a release agent such as amino-modified silicone, epoxy-modified silicone, alkyd-modified silicone and the like can be contained in the dye receiving layer. By using these silicones, the effect of preventing heat fusion with the transfer medium is further improved. However, as the silicone content increases, the storage stability after recording decreases as described above. Therefore, the content is preferably 10% by weight or less based on the resin amount of the dye receiving amount.

Note that a filler can be contained in the dye receiving layer. Examples of the filler include white pigments such as silica, titanium oxide and calcium carbonate, and the addition amount thereof is preferably 5 to 60% by weight with respect to the amount of the received resin. In addition, the dye receiving layer may appropriately contain a surfactant, an ultraviolet absorber, an antioxidant and the like.

Further, as the substrate in the transferred material of the present invention, synthetic paper, art paper, fine paper, coated paper, cellulose fiber paper,
A plastic film or the like is preferably used alone or as a laminate thereof.

EXAMPLES Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to Examples.

Example 1 5 g of styrene-maleic anhydride copolymer powder was stirred with 250 ml of isopropanol at 70 ° C. for 2 hours to obtain a colorless and transparent styrene-maleic acid isopropyl ester copolymer. Using a wire bar, apply this solution to a thickness of approximately 15
It is applied on 0 μm synthetic paper (trade name: YUPO FPG-150, manufactured by Oji Yuka Synthetic Paper Co., Ltd.) and dried for 2 minutes at a drying temperature of 75 ° C.
A 0.5 μm barrier layer was formed.

On the barrier layer, a receiving layer coating liquid having the following formulation was applied using a wire bar to form a dye receiving layer having a thickness of about 5 μm, which was dried at a drying temperature of 75 ° C. for 1 minute to form a transfer layer of the present invention. The body was made.

Polyester resin, Byron 290, [Toyobo Co., Ltd.] 20 parts Silicone oil KF393 [Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd.] 1 part Methyl ethyl ketone 40 parts Toluene 40 parts On the other hand, as a sublimation transfer medium, a silicone cured resin film (thickness: approx. 1 μm) was provided on a 6 μm-thick PET film, and an ink layer use liquid having the following formulation was applied to a thickness of about 2 μm to obtain a transfer medium.

Polyvinyl butyral, BX-1 [manufactured by Sekisui Chemical Co., Ltd.] 10 parts Sublimation dye for cyan, Kayasel Blue 714 [manufactured by Nippon Kayaku Co., Ltd.] 8 parts Methyl ethyl ketone 45 parts Toluene 45 parts Obtained transfer medium and transferred material Are superposed so that the ink layer of the transfer medium and the dye receiving layer of the transferred material face each other,
Image recording was performed from the back surface of the transfer medium by changing the heating energy with a thermal head. The recording density of the thermal head was 6 dots / mm, and the recording output was 0.42 W / dot.

The sample after this recording is 100 ℃ in a constant temperature bath at 60 ℃.
A time storage test was performed to compare the image densities before and after the test (Macbeth densitometer RD-514). The results are shown in Table 1.

Comparative Example 1 A transferred material was prepared in the same manner as in Example 1 except that the barrier layer was not provided, and the same test was performed. Examples 2 to 5 and Comparative Examples 2 to 5 Using the resin for the receiving layer and the resin for the barrier layer shown in Table 1, a transfer target was prepared in the same manner as in Example 1 and the same test was conducted.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, the transfer material for sublimation type thermal transfer having the constitution of the present invention can eliminate the deterioration of the quality of the transferred image over time, and can significantly improve the storability. .

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Hiroyuki Uemura 1-3-6 Nakamagome, Ota-ku, Tokyo Within Ricoh Co., Ltd. (56) References JP-A-62-189195 (JP, A) JP-A-SHO 62-279983 (JP, A) JP-A 1-269589 (JP, A) JP-A 1-280585 (JP, A)

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A transfer layer having a dye receiving layer capable of dyeing a sublimable dye on a substrate, wherein the barrier layer prevents diffusion of the dye by a styrene-maleic acid ester resin between the receiving layer and the substrate. A sublimation-type transfer object for thermal transfer, characterized by being provided with.