JPH04118292A - Image receiving sheet for sublimation dye thermal transfer printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enhance the sensitivity and density of an image and to also enhance sharpness, light fastness and heat resistance and preservability by providing an intermediate layer based on a conductive agent between a dyeing layer having specific gloss and a base material sheet. CONSTITUTION:An intermediate layer having glossiness higher than that of a normal base material composed of a conductive agent, pref., a cationic acrylic resin is provided between a sheet like base material and the image receiving layer composed of a dyeing resin formed to the single surface thereof and the glossiness of an image receiving layer is set to 75% or more and the surface resistivity thereof is set to 10<11>OMEGA.cm or less under a 20 deg.C, 50% RH condition. The cationic acrylic resin of the intermediate layer having high glossiness is based on acrylic or methacrylic ester and has a monomer unit having a cationic group introduced thereinto by copolymerization. The image receiving layer is constituted by compounding a release agent, white pigment and various other additives with the dyeing resin capable of stably holding a dye image if necessary.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a dye thermal transfer image-receiving sheet for a printer that transfers a sublimable disperse dye image by heat to form a dyed image. To explain in more detail, the present invention has a dye-dyed layer with high gloss, a small difference in gloss between the printed area and the white paper area, and excellent antistatic performance, which improves runnability in the printer. is stable and reliable, and the images formed are sensitive, dense, clear, lightfast,
The present invention also relates to a dye thermal transfer image-receiving sheet with excellent heat-resistant storage stability.

[Means and actions to solve the problem]

The sublimation dye thermal transfer image-receiving sheet of the present invention has a high gloss level and is made of a conductive agent, preferably a cationic acrylic resin, on one side of a stretched sheet having a base material mainly composed of a thermoplastic polymer, preferably having a void structure. By laminating the intermediate layer and the dye-dyed layer that receives the dye in this order, the dye-dyed layer has high gloss, and after printing, the difference in gloss between the printed area and the blank area is small, and antistatic treatment is applied. This feature prevents troubles caused by static electricity during image sheet production, product transportation, and running in the printer, as well as during image printing.

Between the sheet-like base material and the dye-stainable resin (hereinafter referred to as the image-receiving layer) formed on one side thereof, a layer is formed that has a higher gloss than a normal base material, preferably made of a cationic acrylic resin. By providing the intermediate layer, the image-receiving layer can have a gloss level of 75% or more and a surface resistivity of 10 days Ω·cm or less under the conditions of 20° C. and 50% Rh. As a result, although the cause is not clear, there is little change in the glossiness of the image-receiving sheet after printing, and the possibility of charging or protruding due to friction between the front and back surfaces is greatly reduced.

The intermediate layer of the present invention has a conductive agent, preferably a cationic acrylic resin, as its main component, thereby increasing the gloss of the image-receiving layer and forming an escape route for static electricity at the interface between the image-receiving layer and the base material. The feature is that it also serves as antistatic.

As the dye-dyeable resin, polyester resin, polycarbonate resin, polyvinyl chloride, and other disperse dye-dyeable synthetic resins can be used.

In general, the gloss of these synthetic resins coated on a base sheet such as paper or film is high, but in order to achieve higher gloss, it is necessary to increase the coating amount of the image-receiving layer or to coat the base sheet. I personally had to use something with high gloss.

However, increasing the number of coated dye-dyed layers is not only uneconomical, but also causes problems such as difficulty in drying during the manufacturing process.

The base sheet may include paper, coated paper, polyester, nylon, polystyrene, polyolefin (e.g. polypropylene), or a biaxially stretched single-layer or multilayer film base material with a porous structure mainly composed of a polyolefin resin and an inorganic pigment.
These films can be used together, or these films can be laminated with various types of paper or multiple layers of films, but stretched films with a void structure (such as synthetic paper) are often used for their insulation or cushioning properties. There are many. However, the gloss of synthetic paper is usually around 15%, and even if the image-receiving layer is coated with a predetermined coating amount, the gloss does not increase much, and there is a problem with the contrast with the high-gloss areas after printing. Ta.

Some of the various plastic films used for the base sheet have been subjected to antistatic treatment, but these have not been sufficient to prevent the image receiving sheet from being charged as in the present invention.

The intermediate layer with high gloss is preferably made of a conductive agent, particularly a water-soluble cationic acrylic resin. Such a cationic acrylic resin has an acrylic ester or a methacrylic ester as its main component, into which a 1,000-mer unit having a cationic group is introduced by copolymerization.

When an image-receiving layer is applied directly to a synthetic substrate without providing a high-gloss intermediate layer, its gloss according to JISP8142 (60 reflection) is around 65%, and the surface resistivity is 20°C. , 10130 cm or more at 50% Rh. When a high-gloss intermediate layer is provided, the image-receiving layer has a gloss of 75% or more, preferably 80% or more, and a surface resistivity of 101 Ω·cm or less, preferably 1010 Ω·C.
m or less.

In order to achieve these effects, a high-gloss middle layer,
Solid content: 0.05-3. Og/m2, preferably 0.1
It is preferable to apply the coating at a rate of ~1.0 g/m2. If the coating amount is too large, it is not only uneconomical, but also there is a risk that the adhesion to the image-receiving layer may deteriorate. Furthermore, if the coating amount is too small, high gloss and antistatic effect cannot be expected.

If the glossiness of the white paper is 75% or more, after printing, the difference in glossiness between the printed area and the white paper will be small and there will be no discomfort.

The environmental conditions of 20° C. and 50% Rh are standard for office and residential environments, and are considered appropriate conditions for comparing antistatic properties. If the surface resistivity under these conditions becomes higher than 1O'10 cm, the image-receiving layer and eventually the image-receiving sheet will become significantly charged, which may cause problems with the running performance of the image-receiving sheet in the printer and dust adhesion to prints. There are concerns about such things. Furthermore, in order to have sufficient antistatic performance at low humidity, it is particularly preferable that the surface resistivity of the image-receiving layer is 1010 Ω·cm or less.

In the image-receiving sheet of the present invention, the image-receiving layer is solidly dyed with a sublimable disperse dye transferred from an ink sheet, and is made of a dyed resin material capable of stably retaining a dye image, a release agent, a white pigment, and its area number. Constructed by adding seed additives as necessary. The resin has good receptivity, sensitivity and density, high transfer speed and image density, and little fading due to heat.
Good running performance is required.

It is also possible to add fluorescent dyes, dyes such as blue and violet, and pigments such as white to the receptor layer of the present invention in order to adjust the color tone as desired or necessary. Furthermore, a desired effect can be achieved by adding an ultraviolet absorber, an antioxidant, etc.

A resin crosslinking agent or a slipping agent is usually added to the receptor layer of the present invention for the purpose of preventing fusion with the ink sheet due to heat during printing.

The crosslinking agent can improve the heat resistance of the image-receiving layer by crosslinking a dye-stainable resin, such as a polyester resin, and for polyester, a polyfunctional isocyanate compound is preferable.

As a slip agent, mold release agent, or anti-stick agent,
Silicone polymers, fatty acid ester compounds, etc. can be used. Many silicone polymers are used that have improved heat resistance through crosslinking, curing reactions, etc., and are also suitable for the image-receiving layer of the present invention. When using a silicone polymer, the amount added varies depending on the heating conditions of the printer used, but - for boat fishing, it is 0.1 to 0.1 to the dyeable resin.
It is 10%.

The above white pigments, ultraviolet absorbers, anti-blocking agents, crosslinking agents,
Additives such as slip agents can be mixed with the main component resin of the receptor layer before coating, and ultraviolet absorbers, slip agents, etc.
It may be applied as a separate coating layer above or below the image-receiving layer.

Generally, the coating amount of the image-receiving layer is preferably 2 to 20 g/
m", more preferably 4 to 10 g/m2. If the image-receiving layer is too thin, there are disadvantages such as a decrease in image density and sensitivity, and a decrease in the gloss of the printed surface. If it is too thick, the effect will be saturated, which will not only be uneconomical but also reduce the strength of the image-receiving layer.

A binder may be added to the high-gloss intermediate layer of the present invention, if necessary, in order to increase the adhesion to the base sheet.

As the binder, a water-soluble polymer having good compatibility or affinity with the conductive agent, preferably the cationic acrylic resin, which is the main component of the intermediate layer can be used. The amount added is preferably 50% by weight or less of the weight of the conductive layer, more preferably the minimum amount added while maintaining adhesion of 20% by weight or less.

The image-receiving sheet of the present invention may be provided with an antistatic slipping layer on the surface of the base sheet opposite to the image-receiving layer.

The intermediate layer and image-receiving layer of the image-receiving sheet of the present invention can be manufactured by coating and drying using a coater such as a bar coater, gravure coater, comma coater, blade coater, air knife coater, or gate roll coater.

〔Example〕

Next, the sheet for a dye thermal transfer printer of the present invention will be explained with reference to Examples.

Example 1 A film having a multilayer structure with a thickness of 150 μm (YUBO FPG150 made by egg oil synthetic paper ■, gloss level 16%), which was stretched with 35% inorganic pigment and 65% polyolefin as the main components, was used as a base sheet. Coating material 1 having the following composition was applied to the surface at a coating amount of 0.5 g/m2 in terms of solid content, and dried to form an intermediate layer.

Furthermore, on the intermediate layer, paint-2 with the following composition was applied in solids content to 5.0.
It was coated in a coating amount of g/m' and dried to form an image-receiving layer to obtain an image-receiving sheet.

The image-receiving sheets of each Example and Comparative Example were printed in solid black using a commercially available sublimation thermal transfer video printer (Hitachi, Ltd. VY-Pi), and the glossiness of each printed area and non-printed area was measured. In addition, the glossiness of the image receiving sheet, the glossy layer, and the white paper of the base sheet was also measured. In addition, the surface resistivity of the image-receiving layer of the obtained image-receiving sheet was measured using a surface resistivity meter manufactured by Mitsubishi Yuka ■ at 20°C and 50% Rh.
It was measured using ta MODBL HT-210.

The results are shown in Table 1.

Paint-1 Cationic acrylic resin (product name 5T-1000 manufactured by Mitsubishi Yuka) 100 parts methanol 100 parts water
200 parts paint-2 Polyester resin (product name: Byron 200 manufactured by Toyobo ■) 100 parts polyester silicone face (product name: KR-5203 manufactured by Shin-Etsu Silicone ■)
5 parts Toluene 200 parts Methyl ethyl ketone 200 parts Example 2 Image reception was carried out in the same manner as in Example 1, except that the intermediate layer was coated at a solid content of 1.0 g/m' and dried to form an image receiving layer. Got a sheet.

Example 3 A 188 μm white PET film (
An image receiving sheet was obtained in the same manner as in Example 1, except that U2 (manufactured by Kijin ■, gloss level: 38%) was used.

Comparative Example 1 An image-receiving sheet was obtained in the same manner as in Example-1, except that no intermediate layer was provided.

Comparative Example 2 An image-receiving sheet was obtained in the same manner as in Example-1, except that the intermediate layer was a coating material-4 having the following composition.

Paint-4 Anionic acrylic resin (Product name: Parsa TL125 manufactured by Kanebo NSC)
100 parts water
300 copies Comparative Example 3 A 188 μm white PET film (
An image-receiving sheet was obtained in the same manner as in Example-1 except that Wloo Diafoil Q@ (manufactured by Glossiness 99%) was used and the intermediate layer was not provided.

[Effects of the Invention] The image-receiving sheet for a sublimation thermal transfer printer of the present invention has an intermediate layer containing a conductive agent as a main component between the base sheet and the image-receiving layer, so that the image-forming surface has excellent gloss. It has a strong antistatic effect, high sensitivity, high density, and clearness of the formed image, stable runnability in the printer, high reliability, and is extremely useful in practice.

Patent applicant: Oji Paper Co., Ltd.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. The glossiness of the dye-dyed layer according to JISP8142 is 75.
% or more, an image receiving sheet for a sublimation dye thermal transfer printer, characterized in that an intermediate layer containing a conductive agent as a main component is provided between the dye dyed layer and the base sheet. 2. The image-receiving sheet for a sublimation dye thermal transfer printer according to claim 1, wherein the dye-dyed layer side has a surface resistivity according to JIS K6911 of 10^1^1 Ω·cm or less.