APPARATUS FOR DECORATING AN ARTICLE WITH A COLORED DECORATION OR IMAGE OF CERAMIC TONER PRINTED WITH A DIGITAL COLOR PRINTER AND CORRESPONDING PROCESS AND ARTICLE THUS DECORATED

摘要

Apparatus (10) for color decoration of an article of ceramic material, comprising: a digital color printer (1 1), in particular of the laser type, advantageously constituted by a printer model already available in the market; - a separation bath (12); and a baking furnace (13); wherein the digital color printer (1 1) is configured both to print (21), using a plurality of cartridges (C1, C2, C3, C4) of colored ceramic toners (C, M, Y, K) accommodated in respective printing units (1 1-1, 11-2, 1 1-3, 11-4) of the digital color printer (11), a colored image (I) of ceramic toner on a printing support sheet (F), and to directly apply (22), using a special cartridge (C5), containing a ceramic fondant (FO), housed in a respective printing unit (11-5) of the same digital color printer (1 1), a layer of this ceramic fondant (FO) on the colored image (I), of ceramic toner, printed on the printing support sheet (F), and wherein the decal (D) formed by the colored image (I) of ceramic toner, printed on the printing support sheet (F), and by the layer of ceramic fondant (FO) applied on the image (I) during the printing step, is separated in the separation bath (12) from the printing support sheet (F) and then applied on the surface of an article (M) to be decorated, that finally is baked in the baking furnace (13), so as to stably fix the colored image (I) of ceramic toner on the surface of the article (M) and thus obtain the final decorated article (A). Advantageously the apparatus (10) allows to avoid quality defects, typical of conventional decal decoration processes, such as unwanted halos formed around the image that decorates the final article and the so-called "stamp effect", and moreover implies limited decoration costs since the apparatus uses a usual digital color printer, without modification, available in the market.