Authors Madhu C.R. and Patel M.C.
Textile printing is an important art of creating decorative textile fabric. The coloration is achieved either with dyes of pigments in printing paste. A successful print involves correct colour, sharpness of mark, levelness, good hand and efficient use of dye: all of these factors depend on the type of thickener used. The thickener must be compatible with other ingredients present in printing paste, The relatively high cost and limited supply of natural thickeners has spurred efforts to find alternatives. Acidic medium is necessary for wool printing and natural thickeners used for reactive dyes are not stable in acidic media, which also lead to find alternatives. Synthetic thickeners, predominate in the printing of pigments due to their low solids content. They additionally offer advantage over natural thickeners in quick and easy paste preparation and viscosity adjustment, and consistency of quality and supply, a printer is looking for a paste that is simple to prepare, stable, prints level and sharp, minimizes the use of dye and auxiliaries, and easy to remove.
