LFP - Large-Format-Printing
Stork Prints and Brückner present innovative coating technologies at Techtextil 2009
Tuesday 09. June 2009 - Stork Prints started a partnership with Brückner, the well-known supplier of modular well-tuned lines for the finishing of woven and knitted fabric. At the next Techtextil show, June 16-18th in Frankfurt, Stork Prints CFT coating head, mounted on the inlet of a Brückner stenter, will be shown at the Brückner booth.
The market of functional textiles for sports and outdoor has grown considerably in the last years. The so-called multifunctional garments are characterized among other things by the following features: water-tight, windproof, breathable, thermo regulating, dirt-repellent, flame-resistant, UV resistant, warming in cold weather, antimicrobial, etc.
Functional textiles established themselves mainly in the field of woven fabrics since these are characterized by a high dimensional stability and can therefore be easily coated with membranes. Knitted fabric, however, is very elastic, almost not dimensionally stable and direct coating was up to recently only possible with indirect transfer coating. A method often accompanied by great difficulties.
For this reason designers and textile finishers have been demanding a suitable solution allowing for coating knitted fabrics directly for years. The dramatically increasing demand for elastic functional textiles gave this request an additional boost.
Now, Brückner along with Stork Prints developed an innovative technology for the direct coating of elastic knitted fabric and applied for a patent. This solution is based on the following characteristics:
integration of a CFT rotary screen head in the entry zone of the stenter;
centering of the fabric in front of the introduction to the coating unit;
extremely short fabric path between the coating unit and the pin-on point at the stenter;
tension-controlled fabric transport of the elastic fabric through the complete process;
selective width and length heat-setting of the fabric with a stenter with optionally available fabric support belt;
flexible foam processor by Stork Prints, which can be used also for paste processing.
This new positioning of the application unit in the stenter entry opens completely new possibilities for coating and functionalizing of elastic knitted fabric. The rotary printing screen allows for applying pastes as well as stable and instable foams in a direct coating process.
Compared to the classical coating with knife-over-air or knife-over-cylinder coating by means of a rotary screen has the following advantages:
no fabric distortion and no damage of the fabric surface (for example abrasion) during the coating process;
the application quantity and the application position can be set exactly for all screen types this allows to apply certain functional features systematically on certain positions of the fabric;
it is possible to realize plain coating and dot coating, the fabric hand can be influenced selectively;
besides “invisible” functions such as hydrophobic finishing uni-colored fashion effects can be realized with the direct coating process.
In addition, Stork Prints’ closed squeegee system allows the application of instable wet foams. This technology is able to replace in many cases the classical padder application with full bath impregnation and offers completely new possibilities to reduce the consumption of energy and chemical products in textile finishing processes.
Depending on usage, the application of instable foams in the drying process allows for more than halve the entry moisture in the stenter (please refer to figure 2, below), the fabric speed can be doubled depending on the use of chemical products and the condensation time and the amount of residual liquid can be considerably reduced.
Other than the fresh partnership with Brückner, Stork Prints will showcase its famed CFT Coating and Finishing head, a selection of rotary screens and a wide variety of coated samples by means of a playful Look & Touch wall.
Other than that, visitors may take advantage of the special fair offer by signing up for technological support and earning a free rotary screen of their along the way.
Visit us at Techtextil June 16-18th 2009, Frankfurt Messe, hall 3.0, booth D25!