What makes a great dye sublimation paper?
Are you interested to learn what it means to make a great dye sublimation paper, to get to know the processes involved and to discover the most important aspects and implications of its manufacture for customers and users? Jump right in and read the first of a series of informative articles about dye sublimation papers. After all, if you know more about what goes into the making of these specialty papers, you should find it easier to ensure that you get the best out of it.
Working in the fashion industry, you probably already had touchpoints with dye sublimation papers. They are widely used across industries - not only in fashion and sportswear, but also for home textiles (such as decorative fabrics, curtains and bed linen), sports equipment, soft signage (including displays and exhibition banners) and hard substrates (everything from skis to cups and coasters).
The best sublimation papers are designed to consistently deliver maximum colour transfer with minimum ink consumption at higher speed across a wide variety of polyester-based applications.
Sappi’s own portfolio of proven dye sublimation papers includes Transjet coated and Basejet uncoated papers for digital transfer printing with water-based dye sublimation inks.
Suitable for both industrial and non-industrial printers, the papers are designed for a range of different machine types and their specific inks and speeds and are manufactured at Sappi’s state-of-the-art mills in Condino and Carmignano in Italy (coated papers) and Alfeld in Germany (uncoated papers).
It is at these mills that the full dye sublimation papers manufacturing process takes place – from processing of the raw materials to final quality checks on the finished plotter reels. And it is through the different stages of this process that we will take you – covering topics including paper production, the coating process, quality checks, conversion and storage.
We’ll kick off next time with a look at the raw materials involved – and where they come from.
See you then!
