Innovative Technology and Creations: The Next-Generation 100% Paper-Based DTF

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Innovative Technology and Creations: The Next-Generation 100% Paper-Based DTF

Due to the issue of plastic pollution, the market focuses more and more on environmental protection. Building upon our expertise in papermaking and paper coating technology, Hangzhou Hydrotech has established a new DTF project team, utilising 100% paper as a substrate. The company has also developed a new generation of innovative products: 100% paper-based DTF HP1308.

Speaker 1: WTiN
Speaker 2: Sophia Liao and Dr Datong Zhang

Speaker 1
You? Welcome to day two of innovate direct to film printing. I'm your host Madeline Thomas, Head of Content at the World textile Information Network. Yesterday we had a full schedule. We've covered market drivers opportunities, challenges in the industry as well for direct to film printing. We also looked at how the industry technology is developing from a sustainability perspective and assessed the director garment market in relation to Director film as well. And today, we have another brilliant lineup. So we'll delve into scaling up director film and the opportunities for third party consumables, and also look at some technology developments. Before we begin, just a quick thank you to our event partners, STS inks and ink bank, and our event sponsors Felix Schoeller, and Hangzhou Hydrotech. For more information on our sponsors of our agenda, please visit the event website. And you'll also find all the sessions from yesterday there as well. And that's via the on demand tab on w ten.com. Or by our event website, so do not worry if you've missed any. So with all that said, it gives me great pleasure to introduce our first speakers today, all the way from China. event sponsors Hangzhou Hydrotech, so they'll discuss their paper best director film solution. And you Hydrotech was established in the National Science and Technology pack of surgeon University in 2001. So welcome to Sophia Liao, Sales Director at Hangzhou Hydrotech. And Datong Zhang, chief scientist and vice president at the company. It's great to have you both with us. Yeah. Hello. Hi, Bob. So to our audience, just a quick note, just like yesterday, if you have any questions, then please use the q&a function provided. I will be keeping an eye on this. And we'll ask any questions to our speakers at the end of their presentation in a q&a so please don't be shy and controlled with your questions. All that said, Sophia, and it hand over to you. Yeah, okay. Thank you.

Speaker 2
Brilliant, thank you.

Speaker 2
Yes. Hello, everyone. I'm Sophia Liao, the Sales Director Hangzhou Hydrotech. This is our chef scientist, Doctor Datong Zhang at home. Hello, everybody. Football weekend how I present communication with you here. Okay, now I will start my presentation. First, I will introduce our company Hangzhou Hydrotech first. Maybe you don't know where we are about our company, but we have been in the field of data printing for about her for more than 20 years. Our company is established in 2001 in the German University, National Science Park and Fox own the research and development of the eco friendly material was the constructor of lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assess with a wrapper for eco friendly products.

The dye submerged by paper and other water based decorative angle for the furniture, printing the foot packing paper and DTF paper in order to guarantees high quality based paper or Are our digital printing materials. So we acquired paper mail in 2018. Now we have four factories for each production. One coating factories that who have five coating lines for the dye sublimation paper and this factory have worked for more than 15 years. And our production capacity is about her 30s are in the Thomas per year. Our paper meals at power three people lines that provide the best paper for the desktop Olympic test sublimation, DTL paper and food packing paper. And we also have our smart factory specializes in producing the what best decorative ink and at last a year, we also build our new factories that are for the research development and their production of DTF paper. This is because our boss or the boss of our company is a doctoral supervisor at the general university. So we built our r&d team at the beginning of our company's establishment. Currently, we have more than 20 person issue responsible for the different term projector. And we now we offer in the more than 16 National patents for inventions and utility models 17 patents have been applied to industrial production. And there this percentage or technologies covered our entire our entire production lines, because of the excellent ind result has made us a national Qinghai technology and process in China with a Porsche as we know, now, that this paper is very popular, it can meet the person no lies the nice relative simple to operate and achieve mass production. The birth or DTF film replace some transitional process such as screen printing the t shirt or paper transfer, but the main base material of DTF as the PT few as among other fields is increasing, we are paying attention to the environmental programs. But now, many people have the sort of arrest ways to reduce the plastic the use of the plastic, such as adding there, such as adding the layer in such as adding a layer of plastic film is a major or was a paper lead it looks like a paper applying P coating on one or both sides of the paper lets the use layer have the performance of P T field. Although these methods can reduce the use of class taker, but they cannot completely solve the problems of plastic pollution to the environment and even increase the difficulties of plastic recycling. Since the DTF for paper detail film and the Chinese marketer into Sauron and 20, we are paying attention to this potential of this protector. So we also have consider many alternatives. But originating from the insistence on the concept of environmental protection, we finally position the basis of our projector to replace the TT p TV with 100% or paper based ETF. The research and development of our new product is for all challenges. We have designed and tried hundreds of encoding formula. And we also test a variety of paper based materials that we can collect data on the market. But after test we found that it we found as our existing paper based materials can not match our core team performance and production and production requirement. So at this time, we have changed our thinking Why don't produce a Best Paper specifically for our digital paper. So under the support of our paper meal, we realize that this idea slowly after you many rounds of testing and verification. So, after repeater Production and testing, we develop our first generation Oh 100% paper based DTF named SP 1108. Here you can see the design structure diagram of our production. As you can see, the first layer is the base material layer is a special paper base that we developer to match the upper coating layers. The second layer is a slow water water absorbing layers a special resin coating and it can slow down thinking speed up our solvent in the ink, the second layer is incurring layer this layer is very interesting, it can fix the ink on the surface of the ink carrying layer and in the process of transfer, it also can release the ink layer very easily. The first layer you can see at the picture is the printer is the ink away printed on the surface or rather on the certain layers and because the ink do not end our coating, so, the color after transfer there will be more vivid margins or feel so, waster we with a protector structure design above our detail paper have some obviously obvious characteristic characteristics that have different forms view for us the paper have no practical component and that can be directly recycled after transferred, then the coating on the paper base are water based or functional materials and do not contain any solvents. And as we know when uses or DTF film, if not completely dried, there will be water and oil returned after a long term of storage. At this item, the paper itself have the water absorption properties so the our paper can solve this problem very well. It's a market that most DTF view use the silicone release silicone release layer and in the process over transfer the release layer and the ink layer transferred to the fabric together. So when you have this is not very stable. Our structure or the structure of our paper is that when peeling off the ink layer is transferred to the fabric part they're released layer left on the paper. So these designs helps the paper how better stability in the process of transfer.

Now you can see men exhibition that we attended last year and this year, because our production and the promotion do not just started this year. We have already done a lot of work before. After two years exploration from the 2020 last year we came up with our first generation of the paper based DTF HP wellmont oh eight Where should our protector at the is a exhibition in Las Vegas. For the first time every customer come to our booth feels very surprised that this is just a actually a paper and the touch is very smooth and softer. And the transfer effector is no different from the film. The second picture is the Quanto X patient, our facial production unveiled it in this exhibition. We use the DTR printer to sue the whole application process. We as our first paper manufacturer that shoes the printing and transfer testing at the excavation site and there have a video that we take as the activation power

Speaker 2
last year we're all So attend it my activation This is our first to try to in the European market and the oxide a factor is very well and we discuss the future development of this productor with our customers in my opinion that that is our European countries emphasize on environmental protection coincides with our productive philosophies of lucid lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets. So, this encourages us to firmly maker 100% paper based the DTF better and better.

Sorry, our promotion and this way our ongoing more and more customer knows that in the field Oh, his transfer, in addition to the DTF boom that is also a new productive code DTF paper. After nearly a year of publicity and a productive promotion meant customer have a deep understanding of the DTL paper customers question began to revolve around what aspects should be paid attention to when replacing the field with paper. So this means that the idea of replacement is being generated. This year, we attended the face spa activation, we should case we showcased our latest generation HP 1308 which have more bright color and can be hard to after the understanding and watch transfer. And the watch watching our watching our transfer demonstration. Customer feel unbelievable is that the color saturation and the most appealing or even better than the DTF view. Here also have a video Azur activation, our transfer.

Various most many customers as hope to test our DTL paper after that activation. Now, man, Chinese customer are using our DTL paper. With our help we are constantly improving the points that we may pay attention to in the using process. Problems they encountered in practical application and suggestions for improvement made our production more and more mature. The DTF DTF industry is in a state of rapid development. And there are many possibilities in the future. faster, more efficient and more eco friendly as an inevitable chant. The hunger for a solution and easier use are what we look forward to in this field. We believe that the paper can bet match this development chant. This is all of my introduction about my company, our productive and our eco friendly conception. Thank you. If you have any questions, you can contact us. This is our information.

Speaker 1
Thank you, Sophia, and thank you to Datong  for that insightful presentation. It's really interesting to catch up with what you guys are doing and especially him about the paper that you have developed for direct to film printing. And just one question from our audience on that. Can you tell us about the handfeel of the the print once it's been it's been printed using the paper?

Speaker 1
Handy few. Yes. After transfer carefree Yes, it is feel more soft because our cotton layer is left that didn't transfer to the fabric. So it didn't feel soft

Speaker 1
brilliant, okay. And do you see a world in where you could create a paper for D to F printing from recycled paper in the future?

Speaker 2
Now our paper our detail paper is recycled no any plastic components

Speaker 1
Okay, so the paper that you've created, it can be recycled, it 

Speaker 2
can be recycled directly

Speaker 1
and that recycling is it you know just normal household waste recycle you know, can you just put it in your in your recycling bin? Or is the kind of a special recycling process for that paper that you know manufacturers need to be aware of

Speaker 2
you tired so Rimini our Seco is that we can use the transfer paper to the paper factory you can you can use the transfer paper to make some some recyclable paper for as the US Lexa tissue paper. Yeah, protection. Yeah, for another paper.

Speaker 1
Yeah. Okay. And is a barrier coating required on the paper to protect the ink from penetrating in the paper.

Speaker 1
And no, we don't have the bearing layer. And we record as low absorb the water reading on the paper. And so STL can absorb the water, but just make the water slowly to penetrate into the paper and then can keep the surface the ink layer still humid, and then they can stick the powder.

Speaker 1
Okay, another technical question from our audience. Some films enable a hot peel, but the ability to do it is also dependent on the quality of the ink. What are you doing to improve the quality of hot peel prints?

Speaker 1
Yeah, we can make a hot hot hot peel and also can make a cold peel. Yeah, on different fabric or different materials disappears, we can make a hot peel. Coalfield. 

Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, you can understand that this was a portrait. Our paper can be hot peel. But for some cotton like the T shirts at two in West Chester is bad to the warm peel. Yeah, it's according to the materials.

Speaker 1
Okay, brilliant. Thank you. And what kind of release layer are you using? You means the release layer is a secret story. No problem. Understand. Yeah. And also another question on on recycling. Use.

Speaker 2
Very special. Chemical. Chemical coating. Yeah.

Speaker 1
It says compared to a different materials. Yeah.

Speaker 1
Okay. Another question on recycling. You spoke about recycling film? What are the biggest challenges that you face with recycling film? And does China have the capacity to recycle plastic film that is being consumed?

Speaker 2
Sure, surely. So already, can you? Can you?

Speaker 1
Yeah. You spoke about recycling film? What are the biggest challenges you faced with this? Does China have the capacity to recycle the plastic film?

Speaker 2
We don't know this question very well, because we don't like the easy fumes of plastic. So we developer our paper paper, we will about about the amount of plants

Speaker 1
and also because there's a layer on the P t so it's not so easy to recycle. I think Yeah.

Speaker 1
And in your in your presentation Sophia, you mentioned the reduction in energy use when using the paper compared to film. Yeah. Do you have a percentage of how much energy is reduced and and what is that compared to is that compared to direct print direct printing with film?

Speaker 2
We don't have the detail the date, but in the same use situation. The our giant spider a giant temperature can be lower than the Yes. And if the humid humidity of the environment is not so high, the dryer the dryer on the printer we can author of the dryer. Yeah, because our dying speeder is faster than the film. So in order to, to have have the have the Giants be.

Speaker 1
Okay. And in terms of me, this was brought up quite a lot yesterday as well actually. Do you have equal credentials with the paper? Or is that a plan to get those credentials?

Speaker 2
We have been doing this certification. Because yeah, in China would have made some certification. But in the European market it have its certification like the Oh ukiyoe and some other certifications. So we are just applying it now. Okay.

Speaker 1
Brilliant. Thank you. And China, obviously, we know is the birthplace of director film. Is there a lot of growth left in the Chinese market for Director film? Or do you see the future of director film moving more into Europe and US best markets?

Speaker 2
We think that because the trend the Chinese market, the the screen printing amount is very big. And we think that DTF will replace this market very faster. So we see hope in the whole world that other the quantity of DTF will be faster, will be fast will will be faster. 

Speaker 1
Developer and with so you mentioned screen printing their roll to roll inkjet printing, you know, is said to be replacing screen printing or some screen printing capacity. But obviously it hasn't fully nowhere near those direct to film printing have a better chance at this do you think than screen printing? And why is that? The melter roll sorry.

Speaker 2
Are you muser wrote row screen printing?

Speaker 1
No. So row to row was was supposed to be replacing screen printing technology. Yeah. And it hasn't. Do you think direct to film printing will stand a better chance at replacing screen printing technology.

Speaker 2
We don't think DTF young or have this advantage but the paper have this advantage because the people have less change over there. Also lands and wise and there's a high temperature so awnser paper production the roads low will be very I think well we will be using in the industrial very faster.

Speaker 1
Okay. And what kind of market share Do you think Director film has in the Chinese market at the moment? In terms of a percentage?

Speaker 2
Maybe I think maybe it's different. If you can say the the maybe it's the production I was a DTF film, maybe try and pry ahead, I think or maybe you 100% If you consider the use marketer. Oh the DTF film. I think the European market is the biggest and the United United State market.

Speaker 1
I interesting Thank you. And in terms of future development plans for for the company and where you plan to take the technology next. What what are you planning

Speaker 1
Okay, so for the detailed paper, and we were developers three kinds of the different given technology, why is the when we transferred the cotton layer and left that didn't transfer with the, the ink, the ink layer, and also with another taps, and the coating layer can transfer with the ink layer. And also for the future, there's another technique and that is without seeking seeking powder. Without a powder, I just use the printer to print the pot. No thought the ponder phrase loosen on the surface. So is it must be great charge for the paper DTF.

Speaker 1
Interesting, we spoke a lot about powerless processes yesterday. So it will be definitely interesting to see where the market can go with that, because that's kind of the ideal scenario, isn't it? Well, thank you both so much for your time. And thank you also to our audience for all of your questions as well. Please join us for our next session at 1pm UTC for our presentation and a q&a on how we can scale up D to F with enhanced properties from STS inks. And QM we'll see you then.

Speaker 2
Thank you very much for your time.