JP6946916B2 - Printing equipment and printing method, and printed matter - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a printing apparatus and a printing method capable of printing a pattern by converting an ink material into a mist.

In printing, a large amount of images and characters have been duplicated by putting ink on a printing plate and transferring it to a medium such as paper. In conventional plate-based printing, the focus is on transferring the ink pattern formed on the printing plate to the medium with high accuracy, and many printing methods have been proposed.

On the other hand, plateless printing includes, for example, inkjet and electrophotographic methods, and arbitrary pattern data can be printed on demand without using a printing plate.
Further, there is a mist coating technique for coating a material by making it into fine droplets. The mist coating technique is a method of coating a base material with a material liquid in a mist state of physically small droplets. It is possible to coat a higher purity material without the need to mix the material, which is advantageous when forming a pattern of functional materials. In order to obtain a patterned film by this mist coating technique, a method of forming a patterned film by mist coating through a mask plate having a pattern of through holes is used.

Further, in the mist method of Patent Document 1, a pattern composed of a hydrophilic portion and a water-repellent portion is formed in advance on the base material, and the mist is sprayed on the base material to allow the mist to adhere to the hydrophilic portion and to the water-repellent portion. Has proposed a method of forming a pattern without using a mask plate by preventing mist from adhering.

International Publication No. 2015/064343

However, when attempting to form a pattern on a functional material, conventional plate-printing or unplate-free inkjet technology uses a mixture in addition to the functional main material in order to obtain ink characteristics suitable for the printing process. The pattern after printing has a problem that the purity of the target material is low and the functional characteristics are deteriorated. Further, in the electrophotographic method, it is necessary to convert the material into toner, and it is necessary to cover the main agent with a material for controlling charge, so that it is not suitable for forming a functional pattern.

Then, in patterning from mist formation, it is necessary to use a mask plate, and there is a problem that pattern restriction due to through holes and cost of mask production are added. Further, in the method of Patent Document 1, a mask plate is not required, but it is necessary to provide a step of forming a pattern of a hydrophilic portion and a water-repellent portion in advance on the base material side, and the problem of high cost has not been solved. rice field.

In view of such a problem, an object of the present invention is a functional pattern by non-plate on-demand printing that does not require printing ink as a functional material, which causes performance deterioration, and does not require a printing plate or a mask plate. It is an object of the present invention to provide a printing apparatus and a printing method for forming the above.

In order to solve the above problems, the first invention of the present invention is
A printing device for mist-forming a desired material to form a pattern on a base material , a mist-making device for producing a mist-ized material from a material liquid containing the material, and at least a part of the base material. With a heating device to heat
At least a mist supply device for supplying the mist-forming material to the base material is provided.
The heating device includes a heating control mechanism capable of arbitrarily heating based on print pattern data.
The heating control mechanism is a printing apparatus characterized in that a heated / non-heated portion is variably controlled each time printing is performed.

The second invention of the present invention is
In the printing apparatus according to the first invention.
Further provided with a base material transport mechanism capable of transporting the base material in parallel to the printing direction,
The mist supply device and the heating device are printing devices that are arranged at positions facing each other with the base material interposed therebetween.

The third invention of the present invention is
Using the printing apparatus according to the first invention or the second invention,
A process of producing a mist-ized material obtained by mist-forming a material liquid containing a desired material, and
A step of ejecting the mist-forming material onto a base material having a heated portion and a non-heated portion, and
The process of attaching the material only to the non-heated part,
Further equipped with a step of drying or firing,
It is a printing method characterized by forming a printing pattern made of the above materials.

The fourth invention of the present invention is
By repeatedly using the printing method according to the third invention,
It is a printed matter characterized by laminating printing patterns made of arbitrary different materials on a base material.

The fifth invention of the present invention is
By repeatedly using the printing method according to the third invention,
It is a printed matter characterized in that a printed pattern based on arbitrary different pattern data is laminated on a base material.

According to the present invention, it is possible to form a pattern with high material purity based on the mist coating technique, and it is possible to perform printing capable of forming a plateless on-demand functional pattern that does not require a printing plate or a mask.

It is a schematic diagram which shows the schematic structure of the printing apparatus of this invention. It is a flowchart for demonstrating the printing method of this invention. It is a schematic diagram for demonstrating the printing method of this invention. It is a schematic diagram of the printing apparatus which consists of the on-demand thermal latent image formation of this invention.

The printing apparatus and printing method according to the present invention will be described in detail below. The present invention is not limited to the contents described below, but is included in the present invention as long as it has similar technical features.

In the mist coating technique according to the present invention, a material liquid in which a material is dissolved or dispersed in a solvent is physically atomized into fine droplets, which are brought into a mist state that can be conveyed by transport air, thereby being transported to a substrate and adhered to a film. It is a technique to form. Mistification is to make the physical volume into a miniaturized form, and it becomes a miniaturized state from the material liquid as a liquid phase.

Next, the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a schematic view showing a basic configuration of the printing apparatus of the present invention.
First, as shown in FIG. 1A, a temperature difference is generated on the base material 100 by a heating device 110 capable of partially heating the base material 100 which is a printing medium. In mist coating, the material is made into mist droplets, transported to a substrate and adhered to form a film. In the present invention, a part of the base material 100 is heated by the heating device 110 to form a high temperature portion (heated portion 102) and a non-heated portion (non-heated portion 101).

FIG. 1B shows the configuration of the mist supply device 300 that generates mist and conveys it to the base material 100. The mist material liquid 200 is mist-ized by the mist-forming device 300 to generate the mist-ized material 210, gas is supplied into the mist transport path 310 by the transport gas supply 320, and the mist-converted material 210 passes through the mist transport path 310. Is supplied onto the substrate 100.

When the mist-forming material 210 is conveyed onto the base material 100, the heat of the heating unit 102 propagates to the mist-forming material 210 when it approaches the base material 100, so that the Leidenfrost effect is generated in the vicinity of the heating unit 102. do. Due to the Leidenfrost effect, the solvent constituting the mist-forming material 210 proceeds to volatilize and enters between the base material 100 and the mist-forming material 210 to prevent contact with the base material 100. Therefore, the heating temperature needs to be at least higher than the temperature at which the Leidenfrost effect occurs.

Therefore, the mist-forming material 210 does not adhere to the high-temperature portion (heating portion 102) of the base material 100, and the mist-forming material 210 adheres to the non-heated portion 101 where the temperature is not high. In this way, by heating an arbitrary place based on the print pattern data, a pattern from the mist-forming material 210 can be formed on the non-heated portion 101.

Since the mist-ized material 210 that has not adhered is discharged at the outlet portion of the supply device, a recovery device may be installed here to reduce the recovery of the mist material and the stray mist to prevent re-adhesion.
Although not shown in the figure, the base material is located above, the mist material is supplied from the bottom, and the droplets of the mist-forming material 210 repelled from the base material due to the Leidenfrost effect are not reattached by gravity. It may be configured to support.

In FIG. 1, the heating device 110 shows the case of fixed heating in a block, but for example, a heating control mechanism capable of arbitrarily heating based on print pattern data using a heat writing device for variable data such as a thermal head. If the above is provided, the heated / unheated portion can be variably controlled each time printing is performed, and pattern formation can be performed directly from arbitrary print pattern data. The heating device 110 may be any device as long as it can partially heat the base material 100, and the present invention is not limited to the heating means of the heating device 110.

2 and 3 show the steps of the printing method of the present invention.

In FIG. 3A, the material liquid 200 is introduced onto the mist-forming device 300 to generate the mist-forming material 210. The material liquid 200, which is the starting material liquid, is composed of a material composed of a solvent and a solute, and the solute may be a material that is soluble in the solvent or a material that is dispersed in the solvent. The solvent can be used as long as it is a material that vaporizes by receiving heat conduction from the base material heating unit 102. When a melt-type solute material is used, if the mist-forming material 210 approaches the base material 100 and vaporizes first when the Leidenfrost effect occurs, the vaporizing material of the solute material may come into contact with the base material and accumulate. Therefore, it is desirable that the evaporation temperature of the solute material is equal to or lower than the evaporation temperature of the solvent.

The material liquid 200 is made into fine droplets by the mist-forming device 300. Examples of the mist-forming device 300 include a droplet mist generation method by an ultrasonic vibrator and a droplet generation method by spraying. In the present invention, an existing device capable of forming a droplet size capable of being transported by a transport gas can be used other than the methods described above, but a mist generator using an ultrasonic vibrator is preferably used. Further, a mechanism for trapping the coarse mist droplets and adjusting the droplet sizes may be inserted in the flow path.

The mist-forming material 210, in which the material is mist-dropped by the mist-forming device 300, is transported to the base material 100 in which a temperature difference is formed by pattern heating by the heating device 110 by a transport gas or the like (FIG. 3 (b)). ~ (C)). At this time, in the heating unit 102, the droplets of the mist-forming material 210 do not adhere due to the above-mentioned Leidenfrost effect, but the droplets adhere (= mist particles 220) to the non-heating unit 101 (FIG. 3 (d)). When the attachment of the desired amount of mist particles 220 to the unheated portion 101 is completed, the base material 100 to which the mist particles 220 are attached is taken out from the mist-forming material 210 atmosphere, and the solvent is evaporated to form a film (FIG. 3 (e). )). It is also possible to heat the material to form a fired film depending on the material type.

FIG. 2 shows the above procedure as a flowchart.
In this way, the thermal latent image pattern including the heated portion and the unheated portion is developed by the mist-forming material. Since the non-heated portion has a film forming phenomenon similar to that of the conventional mist coat, the pattern formed on the non-heated portion forms a film equivalent to that of the mist coat. Further, by repeating this process while changing the material, it is possible to form a laminate made of various materials.

FIG. 4 shows an apparatus configuration for forming a mist film pattern on demand.
In the method shown in FIG. 3, it is difficult to form a structure in which the pattern changes continuously on the base material because the heated portion is fixed, but the pattern that is sequentially rewritten according to the configuration of FIG. 4 is continuously patterned. become able to.

That is, in the device configuration shown in FIG. 4, a thermal head 120 is provided below the base material 100, and a mist supply device 330 is provided at a position facing the thermal head 120 with the base material 100 sandwiched between them. A drying device 400 for drying the mist to form the material film 230 is provided on the side thereof. Further, although the thermal head 120 and the mist supply device 330 are fixed, the base material 100 can be continuously moved in parallel to the base material plane (in the direction of the arrow in the figure) by the base material moving means (not shown). can.

The mist-forming material 210 produced by the mist-forming device (not shown in FIG. 4) is discharged from the slit-shaped nozzle of the mist supply device 330 toward the base material 100. At this time, the base material is controlled at an arbitrary speed and moves in the direction of the arrow. In the discharged portion, a non-heated portion and a heated portion are formed at the mist discharge port by pattern heating by the thermal head 120, and mist particles 220 are formed only in the non-heated portion.
It is preferable that the width of the head portion of the thermal head 120 and the width of the mist supply device 330 are substantially equal to each other. If either width is too wide, there is a fear that a gap may be formed in the heated portion or the heating temperature may be uneven.

The base material 100 is moved by appropriately controlling the moving speed so that the material film 230 has a desired film thickness, and the mist particles 220 having completed the pattern formation enter the drying device 400, the solvent is blown off, and the material film 230 is removed. Is formed. By repeating this, it is possible to form a variable pattern using a continuous base material. Further, by arranging a plurality of such device configurations in succession, it is possible to form a laminated body in which a plurality of material films are laminated on a base material in-line.

In the present invention, the pattern heating method is not particularly limited, but for example, an existing thermal head, an LED array, or a laser line scanning heating method can be used.

As described above, according to the printing apparatus and printing method of the present invention, the material liquid in which the material is dissolved or dispersed is made into a mist and developed using a thermal latent image, so that the material pattern does not require a printing plate or a mask plate. It can be formed. Further, by synchronizing the thermal latent image and the mist supply and forming the thermal latent image from arbitrary variable data, it is possible to form an on-demand pattern of the mist material on the base material. Further, by repeatedly forming a pattern with different materials in the process of the present invention, it is possible to print a laminated structure of different material patterns.

100 Base material 101 Non-heating part 102 Heating part 110 Heating device 120 Thermal head 200 Material liquid 210 Mist-ized material 220 Mist particles 230 Material film 300 Mist-forming device 310 Mist transport path 320 Transport gas supply 330 Mist supply device 400 Drying device

Claims (5)

A printing device for mist-forming a desired material to form a pattern on a base material, a mist-making device for producing a mist-ized material from a material liquid containing the material, and at least a part of the base material. With a heating device to heat
At least a mist supply device for supplying the mist-forming material to the base material is provided.
The heating device includes a heating control mechanism capable of arbitrarily heating based on print pattern data.
The heating control mechanism is a printing apparatus characterized in that a heated / non-heated portion is variably controlled each time printing is performed. In the printing apparatus according to claim 1,
Further provided with a base material transport mechanism capable of transporting the base material in parallel to the printing direction,
A printing device characterized in that the mist supply device and the heating device are arranged at positions facing each other with the base material interposed therebetween. Using the printing apparatus according to claim 1 or 2,
A process of producing a mist-ized material obtained by mist-forming a material liquid containing a desired material, and
A step of ejecting the mist-forming material onto a base material having a heated portion and a non-heated portion, and
The process of attaching the material only to the non-heated part,
Further equipped with a step of drying or firing,
A printing method characterized by forming a printing pattern made of the above materials. By repeatedly using the printing method according to claim 3,
A printed matter characterized by laminating printing patterns made of arbitrary different materials on a base material. By repeatedly using the printing method according to claim 3,
A printed matter characterized by laminating print patterns based on arbitrary different pattern data on a base material.

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