Inkjet printing of silk fabrics usually uses acid and reactive dye inks. Silk fabrics should be pretreated with sizes before inkjet printing. After inkjet printing silk fabrics need steamed and washed with a large amount of water to remove unfixed dyes. It is not only a long process but also results in a large mount of waste water. Inkjet printing of silk fabrics with pigment inks seems simple and good but bleeding of the printed pattern occurs. This is related to the surface structure of silk fabrics. In order to improve the surface structure of silk fabrics low temperature plasma was used to treat silk fabrics in the atmosphere of oxygen. The surface structure of plasma treated silk fabrics was characterized by AFM (atom force microscopy). And the plasma treated fabrics were printed with a magenta pigment-based ink. The results show that silk fabrics treated with 80 watt power at 50 Pa pressure for 10min had higher color yield and excellent sharpness of pattern. AFM images indicated that plasma treatment produced more grooves on the surface of silk fibers than those untreated. Dynamic contact angle test showed that the hydrophilic property of silk fiber was improved after plasma treatment.
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