Printing Today May 2019

May 2019 A Textile Today Initiative l Published with Volume 12, Issue 05 l Pages 115 to 133

The complete positive picture of BD apparel industry is not revealed in the west yet High-quality blotch printing on fabric with a digital textile printer

Volume 12, Issue 05

Soft and comfortable quality prints get popularity

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May 2019

Bangladesh Textile Today |

Factory tales- visit to printing factories in Bangladesh

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Soft and comfortable quality prints get popularity Mohammad Nurul Alam Print is a magic word of the fashion throughout the world, especially among the youth.

Printing is carried out for producing eye-catchy, trendy, along with visualizing the persona of the wearer, by giving designs on fabric or other materials. Besides, people want comfortable and soft quality print in parallel with unique design or embellishment applied on the garment.

no matter what color or fabric.

In reality, make everything ‘soft print’ not on the horizon,” Sumon Hawlader explained.

Kinds of soft quality print Demand of soft quality print is snowballing day by day in the apparel market. But not all the range of color and chemical guarantee soft print on fabrics.

Some color can melt on the fabric, some can burn the color, and some can create thin layer on the fabric for softer print.

Customers demand in prevalent print trends Soft print on T shirt is a new trend that people are craving for, as it’s comfortable. Some prints maybe eye-catchy, but gets least customer attention because of bulky print or very hard to touch quality in print technique.

Characteristics of the soft hand feel print as below: • Soft print can be water base.

• Print that goes inside the fiber.

•N o layer of print will be seen when touched.

•G ood breathability of fabric in the print area.

•W ash can make the print softer and more comfortable.

Newas Mawla Chawdory, Assistant Manager Merchandising, Asmara Bangladesh Ltd, said, “I was working for an Italian customer for last three years. During the development stage buyer wants different quality print and most of the print they ask to be soft and comfortable to wear.”

“So, we always try to use pigment, discharge or other quality print that makes print soft,” Newas Mawla added.

Print with soft quality There are different quality/method

Bangladesh Textile Today |

Figure 1: Picture of Pigment print top + back side. In this print the ink passes on the back side of the fabric through the gap between the yarn and not same to reactive print. On the reactive print ink is sucked by fiber of the fabric.

print that makes the print soft and comfortable. Also each quality has some limitation when printed on different type of fabric or colored fabric.

Some print is suitable on white ground, contrary on colored ground may not be good. Some fabrics are not suitable for all kinds of ink, which requires additional chemicals, making the print process longer and complicated.

Sumon Hawlader, Print manager, Alema textile Ltd said, “Most of the buyer wants soft hand feel on the fabric. But, behind the scenario is, not all the fabric, color are suitable to make softer print.”

“Sometimes this is becoming a matter of dissatisfaction from buyer’s side because they want the soft hand feeling on everything,

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So this is a matter of print expert, to bring out soft print by applying versatile techniques, ensuring premium quality. There are some print quality that can make the print soft and can ensure perfect quality. Discussed below are some top example of soft print.

Pigment print It is a common quality that print factories uses for soft hand feel.

This quality print also known as water base print because the ink is almost water and can do nice soft print.

In most cases white ground fabric is suitable for pigment or water based print color. Water based print also used for process print.

Known as Cyan-magenta-yellowblack (CMYK) print also.

The advantage of pigment print •P igment print is easy to produce on white ground.

• Easy to do any kinds of design.

•C MYK or process print can be done easily.

•C ost of print less in comparison with other print quality.

Limitation of pigment print • Pigment print can only be done

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Limitation of discharge print

problem if fabric is not properly treated after print.

•F or discharge print need dischargeable dyed fabric.

•A ll the color way not dischargeable to dye. Suppose greenish-blue color cannot be dischargeable in fabric dye.

Without discharge dye on the fabric discharge print not possible to do.

•W hite discharge print cannot be done. In this case print factory uses special chemical.

•D ischarge print chemical gives a very bad smell, so garment wash needed to remove bad smell from the garment. Garment wash will increase production cost as well as extra fabric needed for washing purpose. In this case price has to consider carefully.

Figure 2: Picture of discharge print. On top of the fabric print is looking nice and back side of the fabric can be seen the penetration of ink. The ink removed the fabric color and stays on the place.

on lighter color fabric. On darker ground this quality print will not be good.

•K nit fabric is good to use pigment print.

Discharge print Discharge print also a kind of print that gives soft hand feel even on darker ground.

The characteristics of this quality print is to burn the fabric color and put the new color. For discharge quality print need discharge quality fabric in color. To apply discharge print, fabric has to be dyed in discharge color. There are some limitations of this quality print.

Reactive print Reactive dye printing is a method of printing a dye or wax by using mixes thereof to create colors. In other word, this quality of print is one kind of dyeing not print exactly. Reactive print done with a binder and a heat-activated printing additive. The dyes directly applied on fabric instead of fabric dye. For this reason the fabric has to be RFD or ready to fabric dye so that reactive ink can go inside the fiber and fiber can suck the color. RFD process includes desizing / singeing / mercerization.

•N o need to dye the fabric because reactive itself one kind of dye.

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• Reactive print is costly in compare to other quality.

In fine, softer print quality is not always easy but now many print techniques and inks are coming in the market as per market demand.

Some new inks can give both good hands feel as well as this is easy to apply on different color ground.

But health hazardous matter is getting more concern for any kinds of print chemical. Also color fastness is another concern for the soft quality print. However experiment is continuing to find more effective chemicals that can give solution of good hand feel, color fastness and chemical will be hazardous free also.

•T he wearer never feels the stiffness of print color or don’t feel the existence of print.

•S oft hand feel even on different dark color.

•O n slab fabric discharge print can be more attractive.

• Only experienced people can handle this quality print.

•T he nice hand feel and quality of color.

• Good color fastness.

•S ofter than pigment print and good color fastness.

• Reactive print has to do carefully otherwise possibility of wastage of fabric.

The advantage of reactive print

The advantage of discharge print

•O n dark color fabric print looks good because of discharge quality.

• Placement reactive print usually not easy to do so people use reactive print for all over print only.

Limitation of reactive print •R eactive print can do on RFD or ready to dye fabric. So on colored fabric this print is not possible to do.

• The color fastness can be big

Figure 3: On reactive print, ink passes from top side to back side because fiber sucks the color and so can be seen at back side.

Bangladesh Textile Today |

Volume 12, Issue 05

THE CHALLENGE OF CHROME FREE TOTAL ENGRAVING SOULATION Chromium sensitizers are used to sensitize rotary emulsions for exposure and as a bonding enhancer for laser engraving. Because it is a genotoxic carcinogen, chromium (VI) and chromium-dichromate where listed relatively early on the European Chemical Agency (ECHA) CANDIDATES LIST AS “Substances of Very High Concern: (SHVC) IN THE Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction and Chemicals (REACH) regulations.

For this reason, from Sept., 2017, without prior authorization, no more products can be manufactured, which contain chromium (VI) or requiring this hazardous material for application and processing by a customer.

Chrome free emulsions for Rotary Screen Printing: Arcalack ® Rotacoat® Arcagel® Chrome free emulsions for Flat-bed Screen Printing: Texsol 499 Tex® Polytex W690® Polytex Gamma® Adhesives for Flat-bed Frame & Rotary End Ring & Retouching: Arcabond 300 / Arcadur 300® Arcabond R 900 H / Arcadur R 900 H® Estelan 1799®

PRODUCT BENEFITS • Chrome free sensitizing • Ingredients comply with REACH regulation, ensuring future availability • Lower workplace risk and less environmental pollution • Longer storage stability of sensitized emulsions • Suitable for dip and double squeegee coating • Stock coating possible • Good printing resistance

Sole Distributor:

WELL-CHEM ENTERPRISE

Division of ZHAN-TEX PVT CO. LTD. Corporate Office: House-14, Road-13, Sector-4, Uttara, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Tel: +02-7912353, Cell: +01713013073 +01711606073 E-mail: zhantex@gmail.com www.zhantexbd.com

ALBERT ROSE CHEMICALS

20-26 JUNE 2019 FIRA DE BARCELONA, GRAN VIA BARCELONA, SPAIN

Visit us at:

H3-C221

Division of Kissel + Wolf GmbH In den Ziegelwiesen 6.69168 Wiesloch Germany Phone + 49 6222 578-0 Fax +49 6222 578-100 arc@kiwo.de, www.albert-rose-chemicals.eu

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P r i n t i n g To d a y

P r i n t i n g Te c h n o l o g y

High-quality blotch printing on fabric with a digital textile printer Jos Notermans, Manager, Digital Textiles, SPGPrints Blotches have always been very present in many designs for textiles, whether it is for fashion, sports/swimwear or home textiles.

With the increased usage of digital textile printers, blotch printing, however, proved to be a challenge for digital textile printers.

How can you still enable highquality blotch printing on fabric with a digital textile printing machine? In this blog, I explain why blotch printing is difficult for digital textile printing machines and how you could solve these issues.

Figure 1: By using a multi-pass digital textile printing machine, high-quality blotch printing is possible with a digital textile printer.

What is blotch printing?

1. Problem: clogged nozzle

In the textile industry, the term “blotch” is referring to designs where there is a background color behind the printed motifs.

Because of the fact that the motifs need to be printed, normally also the background color is printed.

If there were no motifs, the background color would be dyed.

In digital printing, the nozzles in the print heads can get clogged during the printing process (either due to the ink or for instance dust particles cover part of the open nozzle hole).

Blotch printing is commonly used when printing with conventional printers. However, when using a digital textile printer, blotch printing can cause several difficulties.

Printing blotches with a digital textile printing machine For a digital textile printer, printing blotches have always been a challenge. Why is it more difficult to print blotches with a digital textile printer than with a conventional machine?

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When a nozzle malfunctions, it creates a thin, white line in the design since at that point no ink is being transferred onto the substrate, in our case the fabric.

That means the printed textile can no longer be used since there is an error in the design.

Solution: multi-pass digital textile printing Luckily, there is a way to solve this problem and successfully print blotches with a digital textile printing machine. By using a multi-pass digital textile printing machine, you can mask errors since the lanes that you print overlap each other partly.

This way, any possible failing nozzle in one pass will be covered by good functioning nozzles in the subsequent passes. Only when really many nozzles fail, it might be the case that you still see white lines due to missing nozzles.

2. Problem: the soccer field effect Another common problem with blotch printing on a digital textile printing machine is the so called ‘soccer field effect’. The soccer field effect refers to the different colors of green you see when looking at a soccer field (where it is due to the mowing direction of the grass mowers). The same can occur in textile printing.

In digital textile printing, one pass is printed from left to right whereas the next one is printed from right to left. In the printhead carriage, the six print head bars (one for each color) are positioned next to each other. That means

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P r i n t i n g Te c h n o l o g y

when printing, for instance, a green design (made out of yellow and cyan), in the first pass (from left to right), the yellow drops reach the fabric a little earlier than the cyan drops.

Carbon Footprint

onto the fabric so you prevent the soccer field effect from occurring.

Another solution is to double the printhead bars and mirror the positions (for instance an 8-color printer that has the colors mounted in the order Black-CyanMagenta-Yellow-Yellow-MagentaCyan-Black). This means the order of drops reaching the fabric is always the same.

For the next pass, however, the bar runs from right to left which means the cyan drops reach the fabric first before yellow are added. This could cause a slight difference in the green color which creates the soccer field effect.

Solution: multi-pass printing with extended color channels

Figure 2: Jos Notermans, Manager, Digital Textiles, SPGPrints.

Again, multi-pass digital textile printing can help solve this problem. By having printing passes overlap — for example, by moving

only up ¼ of the distance that you would previously move up (4-pass printing) — you effectively mix the order of the drops coming

Although this is a very suitable solution, it will also increase the cost of the printer as double the number of heads and electronics are needed. From that, the carriage will also get larger and heavier which requires a stronger frame for the printer.

MIT engineers develop a sustainable method to reduce carbon footprint Desk Report Daily global carbon emissions has increased about a billion tons more than the previous year. And today the industrial sector, namely the manufacture of plastics, iron, and steel are the biggest source of global energy consumption and most of these result to carbon dioxide as a byproduct.

A team in MIT chemical engineers developed a sustainable method by using electricity to separate water into oxygen, protons, and electrons. The method uses electricity to run the reaction while removing carbon dioxide as a byproduct.

The team is composed of team leader MIT postdoc Kyongsuk Jin. Other researchers include graduate students Joseph Maalouf, Nikifar Lazouski, and Nathan Corbin, and postdoc Dengtao Yang.

"What isn't often realized is that industrial energy usage is far greater than transportation or residential usage. This is the elephant in the room, and there has been very little technical

Bangladesh Textile Today |

places, but the researchers tend not to think about the embedded energy and carbon dioxide footprint," Manthiram added.

progress in terms of being able to reduce industrial energy consumption," said Karthish Manthiram, an assistant professor chemical engineering and the senior author of the new study.

The three-membered ring epoxide is the raw material in producing detergents, polyester, and antifreeze. "It's impossible to go for even a short period of one's life without touching or feeling or wearing something that has at some point in its history involved an epoxide. They're ubiquitous," Manthiram said.

They're in so many different

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Chemicals with the top carbon footprints include a number of epoxides.

Ethylene oxide, one common epoxide, produces the ‘fifth-largest carbon dioxide emission of any chemical product.’ There are many chemical steps involved in manufacturing epoxides.

This process requires a large amount of energy as it needs to under pressure which is 20 times greater than atmospheric pressure and at nearly 300 degrees Celsius.

Their findings were published on April 9 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. They have already filed a patent on this technique and is enhancing the synthesis efficiency for adaption on a large-scale, industrial use.

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3D Printing

Leading footwear brands making significant investments in developing effective digital footwear Desk Report 3D printed footwear market is growing globally and is set to grow into a 6.3 billion overall revenue opportunity over the next 10 years (according to the latest report from SmarTech Publishing).

with traditional manufacturing processes, which helped push the limits of innovation faster.

Nike has also reportedly been working with Prodways on developing a line of 3D printed midsoles using the company’s SLS technology and TPU materials.

And leading footwear brands are have been making significant investments in developing effective digital footwear manufacturing workflows.

Leading brands such as Adidas, New Balance, Nike, Under Armour and Reebok coming out with their take on it and producing different footwear final parts and products, relying on different technologies and materials.

Adidas is in the forefront of the industry in 3D printing shoes.

Adidas is the brand that has made the most significant steps toward implementing additive manufacturing in footwear mass production.

Adidas recently released their sneaker: the Alphaedge 4D that mixes traditional manufacturing with 3D printing. This sneaker was produced in their ongoing collaboration with the 3D startup Carbon by the end of 2018 Adidas introduced 100.000 pairs of their new shoes and are planning to push the technology even further in 2019 aiming to produce in the

Figure 1: Adidas, 3D printed sole, made from a recycled, resistant and durable elastomeric polyurethane, is responsible for giving the wearer the unique sensation of running on sand.

millions in the coming year.

“We have a really aggressive plan to scale this,” stated James Carnes, vice president of strategy creation at Adidas, last year.

James Carnes continues; “We are scaling a production. The plan will put us as the (world’s) biggest producer of 3D printed products.”

Nike was among the first companies to make intensive use of 3D printing in high-performance product development, using the technology for quick iterations of functional parts.

3D printing allowed to test, iterate and create shapes not possible

Leading footware brands in 3D printing

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New Balance was one of the first companies to experiment with 3D printing for a number of applications. First, it unveiled the Zante Generate shoe with 3D printed midsole in partnership with 3D Systems in 2016. Produced

by SLS using the Duraform TPU elastomer material, the Zante Generate was the first 3D printed running sneaker to be made commercially available The company is working toward increased use of 3D printing as a means to automate (and possibly onshore) midsole manufacturing processes.

Under Armour’s UA Architech is a line of shoes that features a 3D printed midsole. The first Architect line product was introduced in 2016, designed with Autodesk software and produced using EOS SLS technology.

Reebok debuted the Liquid Floatride Run shoe, made using the same technology it introduced in its Liquid Factory. The process is essentially a 3D drawing process.

Of course the numbers that are producing with 3D printing today are tiny if compared to the overall footwear market. But the technology gives the designer more freedom and can give the consumer looking for a more unique and fashion forward shoe a way to express themselves better.

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The complete positive picture of BD apparel industry is not revealed in the west yet Robin Razon Sakhawat Director, Robintex Group

Robintex Group, a Germany-Bangladesh Joint venture, has internationally been renowned for its continual accomplishment in exporting quality knit apparels to the international markets from its establishment in 1996.

A recent conversation between Textile Today Team and Robintex second generation leader Robin Razon Sakhawat has been revealed here for the Textile Today readers.

Textile Today: Please share us about yourself.

Robin Razon: My father Abu Khair Mohammed Sakhawat founded Robintex in 1996. Over the years it grew in big size while I was born and raised in Germany and completed my graduation in Financial Engineering from Frankfurt. I regularly visited Bangladesh and I made sure to visit the factory regularly. I’ve closely watched how my father run the business so smoothly.

Watching him, I got confident and joined in Robintex approximately nine years ago that I can add a lot of value in the company.

In last 9 years, Robintex grew 3

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 Human capital transformation is must because years ahead will be very challenging.

The 4.0 industrial revolution will push for more automation threating the manpower, more competition will come from the western countries.

- Robin Razon

times more. When I joined here, I worked in sample section, in knitting, dyeing, finishing, and planning section for more than 3 years. Means before taking the charge of the company I get to know the whole process.

Textile Today: Robintex is now quite big in size and lots of people works here. How your employees see you when you took charge of the company, as a leader?

Robin Razon: Initial hurdles were there. As I grew up in a different mindset, and language barrier was also an initial issue. But quickly I have overcome these barriers and I am confident now that people have given me the leadership.

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M a c h i n e r y Tr e n d

People are open to suggestions, new techniques, new systems which helped me getting really close to them.

factory will not survive.

after Accord’s work.

Textile Today: So, you do agree that human capital transformation is must?

Textile Today: What is your future vision, for next 5-10 years?

Robin Razon: Yes I do. And years ahead will be very challenging. The 4.0 industrial revolution will push for more automation - threating the manpower, more competition will come from the western countries.

Yes, we have achieved a lot in last couple of years. But the full positive picture is not shown in the western world yet.

Robin Razon: At present the garment industry is changing in a rapid speed. Everyday our profit margin is becoming tighter.

So to sustain in market we are implementing new technology, new techniques, and more effective systems.

Since last year more than 1200 factories got closed due to compliance and many other issues. To put it in nut shell, if you do not invest in your manpower, compliance, as well as modern production techniques I think your

Textile Today: What is the perception among the EU people about ‘Made in Bangladesh’ apparel?

Robin Razon: When I grew up in Germany, the perception of Bangladesh was not so good.

Bangladesh was considered as a low-cost labor market. But it has improved a lot now, especially

Textile Today: How can we overcome this scenario? Who should work to improve the image of Bangladesh apparel industry – government, factories, or the associations?

Robin Razon: I am certain that all must work hand in hand. Nothing will be achieved working alone.

We have to take a joint effort.

Especially the associations, all the members of the association must have to participate strongly in various activities, and together the associations work closely with the government needs to achieve this.

Italian textile machinery: institutional and trade mission in Thailand Desk Report A group of Italian textile machinery manufacturers led an institutional and trade mission in late April in Thailand, organized by the Italian Trade Agency and by ACIMIT, the Association of Italian Textile Industry Manufacturers.

The mission’s program included meeting with various local trade association representatives and industry training centers, as well as visits to textile companies and the Country’s universities with a textile vocation.

ACIMIT President Alessandro Zucchi explains the reasons of the mission: “We had a dual goal: to get to know the local textile manufacturing sector’s level of technology and its current needs, and to assess possible forms of collaboration and partnerships between Italy’s textile machinery industry and entities within the

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Figure: Italian textile machinery manufacturers, ACIMIT President and local trade association representatives of Thailand held talks and various activities.

Country providing specific textile training.”

Zucchi adds that “In Thailand, the textile sector is undergoing a deep rooted transformation.

There’s a demand for machinery that can cut back not just on production costs, but also on the environmental impact of textile manufacturing.”

The demand for machinery by Thai

textile manufacturers is moving towards technologies capable of reducing production costs and increasing production capacity. In 2018, the value of Italian exports to Thailand amounted to 8 million euros.

Six ACIMIT member companies participated in the mission: Brazzoli, Ferraro, Laip, Ms Printing Solutions, Sicam and Stalam.

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Export Analysis

Te c h n i c a l Te x t i l e s

India and Poland are new billion $ export markets for Bangladesh Desk Report India, Poland set to become $1b export markets of Bangladesh in the current financial year 2018-19 due to the extraordinary performance of garment products.

Exporters said that it was good news for Bangladesh as the country was getting two new, billion-dollar markets, in addition to the nine billion-dollar markets.

According to EPB data, export earnings from India in the first nine months of FY 19 stood at $985.32 million which was 59.72% higher than $616.90 million earnings in the same period of last fiscal year.

Export to Poland in July-March of FY 19 grew by 27.88% to $924.85 million from $723.18 million in the same period of FY 18. RMG export to Poland in nine months of the FY 19 increased by 32.35% to $854.36 million from $645.49 million in the same period of last fiscal, data showed.

6000

5000

4000

3000

2000

1000

0

USA

Germany

UK

Spain

France

FY 2017-18

4,414

4,449

3,047

1,846

1,439

FY 2018-19

5,164

4,846

3,158

1,915

1,639

FY 2017-18

Italy

Nether lands

Japan

Canada

India

Poland

1,168

847

830

922

616

723

1,246

1,078

991

968

985

924

FY 2018-19

Figure: Export earnings from major sources in July –March in millions of $ Source: EPB

Earnings from both countries will easily cross $1 billion marks in the next three months of the FY, said EPB officials.

Bangladesh’s RMG export to India would increase more in coming days as good numbers of global brands were opening stores there.

EPB data also showed that Country’s export earnings in last FY 18 stood at $36.66 billion and the earnings were mostly concentrated to the eight billiondollar markets — United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands and Japan.

Technical textiles sector is the need of the hour Seshadri Ramkumar, Texas Tech University, USA India has been promoting the technical textiles sector for nearly two decades. The history of this effort in India can be well traced by this scribe as a personal witness.

developing a converting sector base for technical textiles. Investing in infrastructure to produce roll goods (fabrics) will be fruitful, if there is a base to absorb huge production.

As the co-chairman of the India Committee of the USA-based INDA, Association the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry organized its first nonwoven technical workshop in Mumbai in January 2007.

Vasudevan added that there is a need to have specialized converting sector. He further added that exploring the market and strengthening the marketing aspect should take priority.

That was followed by a major business event, “Link with India.”

Probably, this event was ahead of its time as the technical textiles sector was getting started with wide spread awareness then.

Currently, India is going for a high gear to push technical textiles forward due to the stressful situations faced by the spinning sector due to cotton price Bangladesh Textile Today |

Figure: Technical textiles are reported to be the fastest growing sector of the textile industrial sector.

volatility and supply issues.

“Margin in the spinning sector has been eroding and today one can say it is non-existent in most of the mills,” stated Prakash Vasudevan, Director of Coimbatore-based The South Indian Textile Research Association.

Those mills that have invested in wind power and modernization are surviving, but still needs to focus on diversification, added Prakash Vasudevan.

This scribe has been emphasizing on

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In this scribe’s opinion, there is an immediate need to create a flow channel for technical textiles fabrics (downstream) that can be translated into value-added products, used by consumers.

Additionally, creating collaborations between advanced nations in this field such as Germany and the United States will pave the way for the growth of this sector.

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Innovation

Air pollution, a great source of printing inks Engr. Ahmed Javed Jamal, Head of Technical Operations & Marketing, Silkflex Bangladesh Ltd Introduction

Air quality further declines during the dry months—from October to April—but improves during the monsoon. We can make this polluted air into air ink which will be an asset for ink industry. Air Ink invented by Graviky Labs, is already manufactured in India for commercial basis.

How air ink is introduced?

Founded by Graviky Labs, a spinoff group of MIT Media Lab, air ink produces its materials through a step-by-step process which primarily involves capturing of emissions, separation of carbon from the soot, and then mixing of this carbon with different types of oils and solutions.

In 2013, the Fluid Interfaces research group, at the Massachusetts Institute of

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How air pollution is being turned into ink?

Air ink is made out from unburned carbon coming out of the exhaust

Capital cities with worst air pollution Dhaka 2nd worst capital city in terms of air quality Source: Greenpeace, 2019

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Can air pollution turn into an asset?

"genius, and deserves a chance.”

Products in the form of markers of varying sizes became available for the public to purchase in early 2017.

D

But what is the solution? How can we get rid of this air pollution as the death toll is increasing every year due to air pollution?

Technology demonstrated the process of converting carbon residue into ink for use in an inkjet cartridge. In 2016, Air Ink products were given to graphic artists in Hong Kong, which is known for its high air pollution, who were requested to paint murals. An artist, who participated in this campaign, said the product,

Pollution levels

Bangladesh, one of the most densely-populated countries in the world, has been struggling with air pollution for long. “Dhaka is the second worst capital city in terms of air quality,” according to World Air Quality Report 2018 released by Greenpeace and Air Visual. The report also said that air pollution will cause around 7 million premature deaths globally in 2019 and have a major economic impact. Brick kilns, vehicles run on fuel containing higher levels sulphur, as well as construction work have been identified as major sources of air pollution.

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Zhejiang Runhe Chemical New Material Co. Ltd.

Innovation

pipe of cars, chimneys, and generators. The guys from the lab created a device that captures soot already emitted from vehicles.

When the device is attached to the vehicle, it captures pollutants.

After only 45 minutes of driving, the device can produce 1 fluid ounce of ink. Finally, when the heavy metals and carcinogens are removed from it, there is a purified carbon-rich pigment left, perfect for ink.

Use of air inks: • Permanent marker • Whiteboard marker ink • Calligraphy ink • Acrylic emulsions • Screen printing ink • Inkjet printer ink Is it possible to produce air ink in Bangladesh?

Dhaka ranks highly amongst the world’s major cities in terms of poor urban air quality.

Substantially reducing air pollution could save up to 3,500 lives and

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F a c t o r y Ta l e s - P r i n t i n g

avoid up to 230 million cases of respiratory diseases annually in Bangladesh. In economic terms, this is equivalent to around US$ 500 million in savings due to reduced health care costs and increased productivity per annum.

Brickfields in Bangladesh expel over 9.8 million tons of greenhouse gases into the air annually due to a combination of old technology, weak environmental legislation and enforcement and lack of corporate responsibility.

So it is high time for Bangladesh especially for Dhaka city to make a concrete solution of air pollution. If government and reputed universities of Bangladesh (eg:BUET,BUTEX,University of Dhaka, North South University,Brac University and other reputed university) take proper steps for ‘Air Ink Project’, it will not only reduce the air pollution but also reduce the import of different types of printing inks which will make our revenue a stable position.

organization and the responsible ministry of Bangladesh government can inspire the entrepreneurs to invest into these eco-friendly environment savings project. The market size of inks (marker ink, screen printing ink and inject printer ink) is about Tk760 crore of the local manufacturer and share of import is 1,500 crore. These quantities of demand are met by import mostly from India, China ,Malaysia, Korea and other countries. If ‘Air Ink Project’ is successfully done in Bangladesh, automatically, we will be beneficiary by reducing the import of all types of these inks.

Also, we can save our environment by establishing these air ink production process.

Author Engr. Ahmed Javed Jamal Head of Technical Operations & Marketing, Silkflex Bangladesh Ltd

The environmental concerns

Factory tales- visit to printing factories in Bangladesh Charlie Taublieb, Taublieb Consulting-Textile Screen Printing Consultant The following is an observation based on visiting several textile factories on my visits to Bangladesh. They should be viewed as positive critiques to generate some changes.

1. Too many people per machine

To begin with, most of the factories I visited were all quite large and very busy. All of the factories had multiple automatics, lots of print table and combination screen and digital machines. Most were printing with water-based inks, but a few were also using silicone.

4. Too much flashing with too many flash units per machine

For the most part, the factories were well organized and very clean, much cleaner than most of the large and small shops in the USA. The downside of what I saw was inefficient production with the following issues:

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2. Too many of the same screens per color 3. Too many print strokes per color

5. Some mesh counts were too high based on the type of ink and desired results 6. Sampling was done on tables and production on machines • Samples

were done with the screens on contact with the garments giving a different result than on automatic press • Different

mesh counts were used during sampling and those were to be used on the automatics • The number of times a garment

was printed and flashed was at times different than what was to be used during the production run 7. Documentation was missingsome very key elements I realize that the clients of these companies have very definite requirements, but it seems that none of the factories had a research and development department to try and work out better and faster ways of giving their client the required results.

Based on what I was told, that the government has raised the minimum wage by almost 60%, the factories really need to address many of the points I have outlined above or risk losing a lot of money.

I enjoy coming to Bangladesh and look forward to my next visit.

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Printing Solution

SPGPrints offers one stop technology solutions for Digital and Rotary printing sector Staff Correspondent Founded as a part of Stork in 1947, SPGPrints becomes a unique printing solution provider around the world. Unique rotary screenprinting technique quickly enabled them to move beyond textile printing and offer new solutions for labels, wall coverings, floorings and more. They are now providing from rotary printing to digital printing solutions. Continuous product innovation has brought them over 300 patents. SPGPrints has business activities in more than 100 countries. Benevolent Textile Services is the exclusive agent of SPGPrints B.V- the Netherlands in Bangladesh.

Recently a technical seminar on ‘All You Need in Printing’ held in the capital organized by SPGPrints B.V- the Netherlands. Engr.

Mohammad Mozaffar Hossain MP, Engr. Md. Shafiqur Rahman, President, ITET along with many experts and professionals from the printing sector were present at the seminar.

Figure1: Engr.Shafiqur Rahman (President, ITET and Managing Director, Hams Group) handover the crests to Jos Notermans and Ronald Meuffels of SPGPRINTS.

Jos Notermans, Manager, Digital Textile Printing; Ronald Meuffels, Sr. Area Sales Manager, Rotary Textile Printing and Nitin Gavade, Sales Manager took three technical sessions where they showed the real scenario of printing industry, demands of printing, worldwide market share, why manufacturers should use digital printing or screen printing or others, revolutionary technology solutions of SPGPrints, feasibility of using

Ashraful Alam, Managing Director; Alamgir Rahman, CEO; Fahim R. Chowdhury, Vice President (Sales) and Rakibul Islam, Asst.

Manager, Technical and Marketing of Benevolent Textile Services successfully coordinated the seminar.

Bangladesh has a huge possibility in the printing sector in the coming days. Right now, Bangladesh is producing 1% digital printing and 8% screen printing of global demand. The keynote speakers showed how SPGPrints could give one stop solutions to the manufacturers from machinery, print head, and screens to inks.

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SPGPrints inks, etc. so that one can take decision easily.

JAVELIN digital printing machine The JAVELIN offers unsurpassed quality and value. Using Archer technology, it can print fine lines as well as crisp geometric designs, uniform blotches and smooth halftones. Some features of JAVELIN is given• Printing width 1850mm - 3200mm

Beyond limitat ions.

Stork technology

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Printing Solution

• Maximum speed 6 m/min, cruising speed 2,2 – 3,3 m/min • 6 colors available • Print head technologySPGPrints Archer technology with 36 FUJIFILM Dimatix print heads • Print head gap 3-4 mm (above fabric surface) • Inks- Reactive, Direct Sublimation, Acid, Disperse • Environment condition- 20-25 degree Celsius, etc.

PIKE- single pass digital inkjet printing machine SPGPrints sets a new benchmark

for image quality, uptime and design flexibility by introducing this digital printing machine. PIKE redefines the digital textile printing landscape and opens up new creative possibilities for printing blotches, fine lines, geometric designs and intense colors. The combination of the Archer print bar with PIKE inks offers an image quality that no other digital printer can match.

The seminar also discussed on printing screen technology and printing inks in brief. No matter which print head is used, SPGPrints’ inks are specially formulated to deliver optimum

S p i n n i n g To d a y

performance and unattended printing.

Engg. Shafiqur Rahman said Bangladesh textile industry is passing a hard time due to gas and electricity price hike, new wage board, etc. so hopefully SPGPrints will give us some economical technology solutions in the coming days.

What we produce, most of them goes to EU countries and we use EU machinery to produce them.

So, if the EU machine price is high then I think we also should get a bit more price from the EU buyers, he concluded.

Spinners need to act proactively to overcome current catastrophe Abdul Wadud, CEO & Management Consultant, TRANSFORM It all started in October 2018 with the context of Brexit, slower demand for garments and and higher level of unsold garments in the stores. Then it was carried through by comparatively higher level of currency devaluation of competing countries and dumping yarn price from outside countries, followed by 51% wages increase for the readymade Bangladesh garment industry, higher tariff on gas, the major raw material for captive power generation for spinning industry, the trade war among the two major economies of the world-USA and China.

The battle between USA and China is a battle of USD 100 billion Vs. USD 500 billion exports in between those two countries.

Who would win the battle, only God (Allah) knows but it is evident that it has contributed immensely into increased volatility in the international trade, adversely affected world economic growth, distorted the stability of money market and capital market. So far, we have passed almost eight

months and it is now the time to settle down. Is not it?

 The battle between USA and China is a battle of USD 100 billion Vs. USD 500 billion exports in between those two countries. So far, we have passed almost eight months and it is now the time to settle down. Is not it?

It is a part of my daily activity that I collect different data and analyze those in my own way that I feel is interesting since I started my career in 1997 after studying Finance for long six years.

And I wondered how close my analysis was with respect to

actual as I started my career in the spinning industry. I sometimes wondered is it gut feeling? Nah! Sounds stupid and as I did not have the answer I was happy to remain stupid.

Only in a recent year, I came to know about how I could do it from Mel Robbins who I think is a great motivator. The way my ‘Reticular Articulated System’ signals about spinning business in Bangladesh market is that the situation would remain the same for rest of 2019 and it is very important to design some macro and micro strategies in order to minimize damage.

So, I would highly recommend the spinning community to wake up who are still after the ‘Low hanging fruits’ since the beginning of the biggest spinning catastrophe in Bangladesh since independence that started back in October 2018 and expecting that soon it would be over. It is high time for action with the future in mind and I am very optimistic about the spinning industry.

As a reference or recommendation you can go through my following two articles that were published in Textile Today: Article in “Textile Today” October, 2018 issue. Topic “Strategies to secure competitiveness in Spinning in Bangladesh” Article in “Textile Today” March, 2019 issue. Topic “An analysis of the current state of spinning industry in Bangladesh and seeking a way forward to cultivate success and assure sustainability”

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