Kyocera, which specializes in printheads that are used by major manufacturers in the digital textile industry, has indicated its power on digital printing technology by showcasing the latest inkjet head they developed at ITMA 2023. Since traditional analog textile printing uses a lot of water, especially during the washing and steaming procedures, the company developed a new inkjet textile printer, called FOREARTH, to help with these environmental issues by combining patented inkjet, ink, and printing equipment technology. Welcoming many visitors from all over the world, the company’s booth highlighted the importance of digitalization concerning the issue of sustainable printing.
Answering the questions of Textilegence, Kyocera Deputy General Manager, IDP Business Development Division, Sho Taniguchi pointed out that they had many visitors from Türkiye, Italy, the UK, India, and other different countries and emphasized Kyocera’s role in the digital textile industry at the exhibition. He also noted the strategy behind the development of inkjets and their printing solutions by evaluating the innovative steps the company has taken action.
Kyocera supports sustainable printing with digitalization
As sustainability is the key factor at ITMA 2023, Kyocera promoted sustainable printing with the technology they developed. Addressing the fact that 51% of digital printing is printed by Kyocera Inkjet Head in the world, Sho Taniguchi underlined that many manufacturers of inkjet textile prints are using their brand. In this context, he evaluated how they contribute to the industry in terms of sustainability: “20% of the water pollution and 10% of our CO2 emission is coming from this industry. Digitalization itself has already started helping, also we consider what we can contribute to the market suffering about this issue. We decided to try to develop the most sustainable printer using our technology. We have the technology for the printer, for MFP, office printing, and software application.”
Sho Taniguchi noted that they combine the needs of the sector with the technological knowledge they had to the innovations. He asserted that with the help of engineers, they developed solutions and disclosed: “We reach to the point that using the pigment is one of the solutions for water free. On the other hand, 65% of the printed fabric is used for ladies’ and fancy wear. However, the ladies’ fashion market does not accept the pigment since its feeling is too hard. We decided, okay, we will use pigment and the target is to make a very soft texture and print that. This was the starting point. After some developments, we finally have reached the quality of a very soft texture with pigments and good quality of print and a high level of fastness.”
New circulation and control system in Inkjet Head
The main feature behind Kyocera’s Inkjet Heads are the new circulation and control system. Highlighting that with this system machines do not need any pretreatment process, Sho Taniguchi said that one just needs to prepare the raw materials and start printing. He evaluated this system by saying: “The print head itself is not very special, yet we use the latest inkjet head of Kyocera. It has a circulating system, which makes viscosity and temperature stable. Stability is very important for pigment as well as a strong setting. We develop pretreatment liquid and pigment ink. It’s called the PICFY. The key is the combination of this pre-treatment. Everything, pre-treatment and the dry ink and the post-treatment is treated by the inkjet. It means that it is not necessary to make a pretreatment.”
Taniguchi also explained the sustainable feature: “Our machine does not use water. In the case of printing, usually 153 litres of water is used for 1 kg of fabric print, meaning steaming and washing, and everything. In our case, 0.02 litres. The detection is 99.98 percent, almost nothing. So, this is not related to the location of water resources. It means that we can even print in the office at city center, and you can put the machine close to consumption area. Transportation costs are also a big headache so you can minimize the transportation cost.”
Taniguchi described the advantages of using Kyocera’s machine as: “Our machine can print 500-1000 meters in small portions. It can print any design, you can change the design immediately, not necessary to prepare the break. So, in total efficiency of the cost, it would be a very reasonable thing. In addition, the dyeing is necessary to change according to the type of fabric. Our machine can print any type of fabric with one configuration. Just change the fabric and start printing.”
“The Turkish market has a high potential for the textile industry”
Expressing the knowledge of the Turkish market, Sho Taniguchi remarked that Turkish people understand the necessity of taking on the issue of sustainability. Pointing out the actions the brands and government take, he asserted that their machine can be the solution regarding sustainability. In this context, he disclosed: “The brand owners request less water pollution. Our production site must do something as well. So, I think our machine can be one of the solutions to contribute to the said problem. The government also requests to reduce pollution. The people who are working with analog print for textiles are going to face the problem soon enough. That’s why we’d like to contribute and work together with the people who are in the Turkish market.”