Ultra-high-speed digital non-printing: driving the printing and dyeing industry to green + smart

When you talk about the textile industry, what do you think of? Is it high-emission wastewater waste? Or is it the same pattern design? Recently, China's first Single-Pass ultra-high-speed digital printing machine was put into operation in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, officially opening the door of high-speed digital printing in China's textile industry. The core technology of this printing machine , digital inkjet printing control technology, is independently developed by the advanced manufacturing and automation team of the Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and has full intellectual property digital inkjet printing technology. It has the advantages of no plate making, environmental protection and green, etc. It can realize flexible manufacturing and on-demand production, and has the characteristics of Industry 4.0.

From ceramic to textile

Digital inkjet printing technology is hailed as the third revolution in the printing industry. In order to enable this technology to be used in the textile industry, the advanced manufacturing and automation team spent more than a year, overcoming many technical problems, and developed this printing machine control system. In fact, as early as around 2000, advanced manufacturing and The automation team is working on the development of digital inkjet technology and has a strong technical heritage in this field.

Around 2012, the leader of a ceramic tile printing industry in Guangdong came to the door, hoping to help companies upgrade and replace the traditional screen and roller printing lines. After painstaking research, the team successfully applied digital inkjet technology to the ceramic printing industry, bringing revolutionary changes to the ceramic printing industry. Tile manufacturers using this equipment have significantly improved product quality and grade, and the equipment market demand is strong.

Around 2015, a textile industry equipment manufacturer found an advanced manufacturing and automation team, hoping to use this technology in the printing field, so this was the birth of China's first Single-Pass ultra-high-speed digital printing machine.

Overcome many technical obstacles

Although there is a certain technical commonality, the texture of textiles and ceramics is not the same, and the requirements for patterns and colors are different. In the development process, the advanced manufacturing and automation team also made many innovations.

Team member and assistant researcher of the Institute of Automation of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hu Jianhua, told the reporter of the Chinese Journal of Science and Technology that they have overcome the technical problems of high-speed raster data processing, high-precision synchronous control and distributed data processing. The team proposed a distributed high-speed parallel digital printing control architecture based on token queue to form a complete solution with 4 invention patents and four software copyrights. There are many kinds of patterns of clothes, and the requirements for expressiveness, vividness and texture of printing are very high, which requires high-speed raster data processing technology.

Ultra-high-speed digital printing machines often require dozens of color inkjet heads for precise inkjet coloring. How to achieve precise control of so many inkjet heads is also a technical difficulty. After the research, the printing machine developed by the team can control more than 200 inkjet heads at the same time.

At present, the digital inkjet printing technology in the UK is at the leading level in the world. Compared with their products, our technology and products are comparable in performance, and they are better than localization and integration.

Helping the industry 4.0 era

In the view of advanced manufacturing and automation teams, their technology and products are of great significance to the traditional printing and dyeing industry .

“First of all, using our technology and products, we do not need to make plates when printing and dyeing textiles, and can print in real time, eliminating the pollution of waste water and waste in the plate making process”. The advanced manufacturing and automation team introduced the non-contact printing method. Enterprises can also create three-dimensional patterns. High-precision digital inkjet can print more colors than traditional roller printing or rotary screen printing technology, with high yield, easy control of grey cloth and dyeing materials, reducing waste generation and increasing environmental protection.

At the same time, the industrial-grade high-speed digital printing equipment has a variety of patterns, catering to the "small batch, multi-variety, short delivery period" fast fashion style. “Consumers can place orders on the computer and transfer the pattern to the server. The manufacturer can directly issue instructions to the machine to start printing. It should be said that with this technology, real flexible manufacturing can be realized, and personalized pressing can be realized. Need to produce, truly meet the requirements of Industry 4.0.

China has become the world's largest base for textile manufacturing and processing, and it is in urgent need of green and pollution-free printing. The next few years will be the golden period for the development of digital printing in China. This technology will meet the urgent needs of the industrial transformation and upgrading of the printing and dyeing industry and will promote the rapid transformation of the traditional printing and dyeing industry.

Next, the advanced manufacturing and automation team intends to extend this technology to the packaging, labeling and other industries to help digital and green production in traditional industries.