What Is Water Transfer Printing?

What Is Water Transfer Printing?

Water transfer printing (WTP), also known as immersion printing, water transfer imaging, hydro dipping, watermarbling, cubic printing, water printing, Hydrographics, or HydroGraphics. Water transfer printing technology is a printing technology that uses water pressure to hydrolyze the transfer paper/plastic film with color patterns. As people's requirements for product packaging and decoration increase, water transfer printing has become more and more widely used. Its indirect printing principle and printing effect solve many problems of product surface decoration, and it is mainly used for the transfer of various types of ceramics and cellophane paper.

Water printing process:

There are two types of water transfer technology, one is watermark transfer technology, which mainly completes the transfer of text and photo patterns; the other is water coating transfer technology, which tends to perform the complete transfer on the entire product surface. Water transfer printing technology can be divided into two types: water labeling and water coating, which has strong practicability and versatility.

Advantages of water printing:

• Aesthetics: Any image can be transferred to the product, breaking through the past printing technology, and realizing your printing needs.
• Innovative: Water transfer printing technology can overcome the problems of complex shapes and dead corners that cannot be produced by general traditional printing and thermal transfer, pad printing, screen printing, and surface coating.
• Extensiveness: It is suitable for surface printing of hardware, plastics, leather, glass, ceramics, wood, and other products (cloth and paper are not applicable). It is not limited by the shape of the product. It can also be applied to products that are particularly complex or large, super long, and super-wide.
• Personalization: Do whatever you want, and design any patterns according to customer needs.
• High efficiency: No need for plate making, direct drawing, fast transfer (the whole process only takes 30 minutes, suitable for proofing).
• Superiority: Fast proofing, curved surface printing, personalized printing, small quantity, and much non-paper and cloth printed matter.
• Environmental protection: Residues and wastewater will not pollute the environment

Current status of water printing process and future market development

Science and technology are constantly advancing, and many new technologies are also innovating and breaking through. As far as the printing industry is concerned, it is not limited to the printing of paper. Many materials different from paper and objects with a complex appearance also need to be printed. Therefore, the technical service project of "special printing" is born.

Special printing refers to a variety of special printing processes with different materials and different shapes. Among them, the most widely used are screen printing and pad printing industries. In addition, hot stamping and thermal transfer printing are also popular printing processes, but the above processes still have limitations, so water transfer printing technology has been developed.

With the special printing requirements of many industries such as daily necessities, electronic products, automotive supplies, decorations, medical equipment, room supplies, hardware, and building materials, water transfer printing technology has been developed in response to market demand.

Water printing market application

Water transfer printing uses a special carrier and uses water as a medium to transfer the pattern to the surface of the substrate. The production process is more complicated, so the production process and material costs are relatively high. However, water transfer printing is a relatively versatile printing method, which can achieve printing effects and technical limitations that other printing processes cannot achieve. The requirements for the shape of the substrate are relatively low, whether it is flat, curved, edged, or concave, etc., both can execute. It can break the restrictions of other special printing on the shape of the substrate (large, small, irregular, etc.), so the application range is very wide. From the perspective of substrate materials, water transfer printing is suitable for materials with smooth surfaces such as glass, ceramics, hardware, wood, plastic, leather, and marble. Water transfer printing does not require pressure and heating during the transfer process, so it is a suitable process choice for some ultra-thin materials that cannot withstand high temperatures and cannot withstand pressure.

Since water transfer printing can be divided into offset printing, screen printing, gravure printing, and other methods, the production process must go through complicated procedures such as plate making, filming, booting, overprinting, etc., which is only suitable for mass production. Nowadays, a brand-new water transfer technology-inkjet printing water transfer is introduced in the market. The flexibility of inkjet printing and water transfer technology is very strong. No matter how high the definition of the image is, if the resolution of the printer output is sufficient, it can achieve the effect required by the customer. Compared with screen printing, it has more advantages. And the advantage of flexibility is especially suitable for personalized transfer. Tailor-made personalized products are more and more favored by consumers. Personalized transfer can fully meet the consumer needs of modern people.

The biggest feature of water transfer printing is its wide application range. With this advantage, the market development prospect of inkjet transfer technology is very impressive. Personalized transfer printing into various fields will become the new future of water transfer printing. With the continuous progress of water transfer printing technology, this special printing industry will surely bring more business opportunities and add more brilliant colors to people's lives.