Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Chapter II
Chapter II
Local Literature
Long before, ink is usually made from natural products such as berries,
barks and leaves extract. They have been used for centuries to create
numerous color and when mixed to other substances can be an ink, dye or
paint. Tea leaves have been also used for centuries to make ink because of its
various shade that create yellow, green, brown or black ink. (Lopierre, Lopi. .)
Plants that contain tanning color can be reliable for making ink. For
centuries, galls nestled from oak trees as primary ingredient to make a black ink.
The rich tanning color of dogwood and alder tee also results to natural inks. Galls
and barks achieve more intense, lasting inks than most of the flower-based inks.
Also, Egyptians achieved quality red ink with poppies. (.) According to
Helmenstine, any acidic fruit juice can be used to make an invisible ink when
combined with vinegar to make the ink last longer. (.)
Robbins (2010) described marker pens as pens which have their own ink source
and usually has a tip made of absorbent and pressed fiber and was first created
by Sidney Rosenthal in 1952. This marker pen had been one of the commonly
used writing instruments for about fifty years.
There are probably as many different definitions of ink as there are types.
Perhaps the simplest description is that ink is a liquid or semi-liquid material used
for writing, printing or drawing. Chemists view it as a colloidal system of fine
pigment particles dispersed in a solvent (Chem. Br., February 2003, p28). The
pigment may or may not be coloured, and the solvent may be aqueous or
organic.
The earliest black writing inks, developed before 2500BC, were suspensions of
carbon, usually lampblack, in water stabilised with a natural gum or materials
like egg albumen. Modern ink formulations are rather more complex. In addition
to the pigment, they contain many other ingredients in varying levels.
Collectively known as ’vehicle’, these additional ingredients include pH
modifiers, humectants to retard premature drying, polymeric resins to impart
binding and allied properties, defoamer/antifoaming agents to regulate foam
efficiency, wetting agents such as surfactants to control surface properties,
biocides to inhibit the fungal and bacterial growth that lead to fouling, and
thickeners or rheology modifiers to control ink application.
Over 90 per cent of inks are printing inks, in which colour is imparted by pigments
rather than the dyes used in writing inks. Pigments are insoluble, whereas dyes
are soluble, though sometimes these terms are used interchangeably in
commercial literature. Ink pigments are both inorganic and organic. Most red
writing inks are a dilute solution of the red dye eosin. Blue colour can be
obtained with substituted triphenylmethane dyes. Many permanent writing inks
contain iron sulfate and gallic and tannic acids as well as dyes. Ballpoint ink is
usually a paste containing 40 to 50 per cent dye.
Most white inks contain titanium dioxide as the pigment, as rutile and anatase in
tetragonal crystalline form. However, growing concerns over the known toxicity
of heavy metals have led to the replacement of many inorganic pigments such
as chrome yellow, molybdenum orange and cadmium red with organic
pigments, which offer better light fastness and reduced toxicity. Furthermore,
carbon black now replaces spinel black, rutile black and iron black in nearly all
black inks. In fact the ink industry is the second largest consumer of carbon
black.
Other inorganic materials such as clays serve as fillers or extenders, which
primarily reduces the cost of pigments, though some also improve ink properties.
Metallic pigments like aluminium powder (aluminium bronze) and copper-zinc
alloy powder (gold bronze) are used in novel silver and gold inks. Miscellaneous
inorganic pigments provide luminescent and pearlescent effects.
Changes in ink chemistry over the years closely reflect developments in the
instruments for ink coating: the pen and the printing machine. The ballpoint pen,
the felt-tip marker, and the fibre-tip pen have led to inks containing solutions of
dyes in water or organic solvents such as propylene glycol, propyl alcohol,
toluene or glyco-ethers. Other ingredients like resins, preservatives and wetting
agents are also added.
Similarly, the composition of printing inks depends on the type of printing process
- specifically, how the ink-distribution rollers are arranged in the printing press.
The major classes of printing processes are lithography or the offset process,
flexography, gravure printing, screen printing, letter press and digital printing.
I nk, as scientists view it, is a colloidal system of fine
pigment particles dispersed in a solvent. There are different types of inks,
ranging from invisible inks, typewriter ribbon inks, printing inks, fountain pen inks,
India ink, ballpoint pen inks, and more (Stinky ink shop, 2012). Composition
and consistency of inks are varied according to their specific use (Ezine
Articles, 2012). Inks are complex mixtures of colorants, vehicles, and additives,
which are adjusted in composition to produce the preferred writing
characteristics (Hunger, 2003). Vehicles or carriers are usually solvents that allow
the ink to flow and bring t h e c o l o r a n t t o t h e s u r f a c e . I t a l s o s u p p l i e s
t h e i n k ’ s c o h e s i v e a n d a d h e s i v e properties (ATS Rheo Systems, 2011). In
this research, water was used as the vehicle or carrier of the ink. Additives serve
as flow [viscosity] modifiers, surface activators, corrosion controllers,
solubility enhancers, and preservatives (Brunelle et. al., 1993). I t
stabilizes the ink and provides its desired characteristics. Proportions
change depending on the medium that the ink is being made for pens,
printing presses, or printers (How StuffsWorks, 1998-2012). The additives used in
this research are Gum Arabic, Carbolic Acid, and Ferrous Sulfate. Gum Arabic
is a type of gum that comes from the hardened sap of the Acacia Senegal
and the Acacia Seyal trees. Also called chaar gund, gum acacia, meska,
or char gund, this natural gum is usually free of4color, odor, and taste. It
can be in the form of powder, syrup, oil, chunks or pellets. It is considered a vital
component in traditional lithography, particularly when used in paints, inks,
glues, and printing. It is sometimes used to control viscosity (Wise Geek,2003 -
2012). One gram of Gum Arabic dissolves in 2 ml of water forming a solution
which flows readily, acid to litmus and insoluble in ethanol (FAO, 2012).
However, too much Gum Arabic will cause the dried ink to become inflexible,
and it can crack and flake off the surface (Karnes, 1998). Meanwhile,
Carbolic Acid, C6H5OH, or C6H6O,—also known by the names Phenyl
Alcohol, Phenic Acid and Phenol, is obtained by fractional distillation and
subsequently purified (Rootsweb, 2003). It was first used to clean and dress
wounds by a surgeon named Joseph Lister.
Sources:
Commercialized Inks
-https://sciencing.com/chemical-composition-pen-ink-17194.html
-https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/ink-chemistry/3002158.article