An early example of textile printing is found on a block-printed tunic dated from
the fourth century CE.1 Evidence suggests that carved block printing, also known
as xylography, originated about the fourth century in China and initially found
use in printing textiles and short Buddhist texts that believers carried as charm
protection.1,2 Sui emperor Wen-ti ordered the printing of Buddhist images and
scriptures in an imperial decree of 593. The British Museum houses the oldest
known block-printed book, the Diamond Sutra, dated 868 CE from Dunhuang,
China. Block printing of textiles began to flourish in Surat in Gujarat (India)
during the twelfth century for the printing of wall hangings, canopies and floor
spreads.3 The printing of textiles spread around the world along the Silk Road
and through the spice trade.
While we can only infer the origins of textile printing from the few artifacts
that have survived, digital printing evolved in an age of record keeping. In 1686,
Edme Mariotte suggested the basis for inkjet printing with the publication of his
seminal work on fluid dynamics, `Traite du movement des eaux et des autres
corps fluids'. It included observations on drop formation of fluids passing
through a nozzle. Ebenezer Kinnersley added to this foundation when he
demonstrated that electrical current could pass through water in 1748. During
the following year of 1749, l'Abbe Nollet examined the effects of static
electricity on the flow of drops from a capillary tube. Lord Kelvin (Sir William
Thomson) received the first patent for an inkjet printing system in 1867,
`Receiving or Recording Instruments for Electric Telegraphers'. Eleven years
later in 1878, Lord Rayleigh (Sir John William Strutt) described the role of
surface tension in drop formation. The 1920s and 1930s witnessed patent
applications and issuances for inkjet recording devices, including notable
inventions from Richard Howland Ranger and Francis G. Morehouse in 1928,
Clarence W. Hansell4 for an electrically charged recycling device in 1929, and
Kurt Gemscher in Germany in 1938.
During the same year, 1938, Chester Carlson invented analog electro-
photography in Astoria, Queens, New York. It took Carlson and his subsequent
partner company Haloid over 20 years and a few intermediate steps along the
way, such as the Haloid A1 in 1949 and Copyflo in 1955, to deliver a successful
office plain paper copier with the Xerox 914 in 1959. The A1 failed for the
purpose that Haloid intended it as an office copier, but succeeded as a plate
maker for commercial printing. Digital laser versions of electrophotography
produced transfers in the 1980s to decorate fabrics, particularly T-shirts and
other sewn garments and accessories. Researchers at Georgia Tech and North
Carolina State University investigated the feasibility of printing fabric with
electrophotography with some success.
In 1959, the Research Labs of Australia began exploiting its invention of
developing electrostatic images with liquid toners. Xerox and others developed a
similar liquid toner variation on electrophotography for wide format printing,
electrostatic printing. In 1979, Xerox introduced its 2080 engineering copier.
Xeroxcolorgrafx, Raster Graphics, 3M, Nippon Steel-Synergy Computer
Graphics, Calcomp, Silvereed, Phoenix Precision Graphics and others advanced
this technology with the development of E-stat printers during the late 1980s and
1990s. Almost all of these companies have discontinued production of their
electrostatic printers. Only 3M of St Paul, Minnesota, USA, currently supplies
and supports an electrostatic printer, the Scotchprint 2000. Hilord supplies both
pigment resin and sublimation dye toner for electrostatic printers. Beta Color of
Ontario, California, and others have developed processes for using Scotchprint
2000 for cost-printing polyester and Nylon 6.6 fabrics with sublimation toners.
In 1949, Elmquist applied for a patent for `Measuring Instrument of the
Recording Type'. Two years later in 1951, Siemens released the first com-
mercially produced inkjet printer based on the Elmquist patent, the Elema
Oscilomink. Carl Helmuth Hertz and Sven Eric Simmonsson applied for patent
on high-resolution continuous inkjet in 1965. This invention and other inven-
tions of Dr Hertz and his colleagues at Sweden's Lund Institute of Technology
led to the development of the Stork and Scitex Iris proofing systems. This type
of continuous inkjet technology features mutual charged droplet repulsion that
produces very fine ink droplets at a very high frequency. It can produce high
apparent resolution images with many gray or halftone levels. It suffers,
however, from slow print production speed, a slight background from stray
droplets, and the complications inherent with recirculation of unprinted toner
drops. This process uses dye-based colorants that lack the level of permanence
that pigments provide. The textile and fashion design industries have used these
systems since their introduction. Stork also developed a successful proofing
system for the commercial print industry in conjunction with DuPont.
In 1967, Professors Sweet and Cummings of Stanford University in
California applied for a patent on a binary continuous inkjet array. In 1968,
printer manufacturer A.B. Dick commercialized Sweet's invention with the
Videojet 9600. This device launched the marking and coding industry on its
digital path. While early applications of this technology were primarily for
coding cans, containers and other packaging, it was capable of marking fabric as
well.
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