As much as the world is going digital, every office still needs to have a good printer on hand to prepare important documents. Finding a good printer in the market is not a difficult task. The problem comes when trying to buy other essential elements of a printer such as Okidata toner cartridge or ink.
Being aware of the type of ink your printer use will help you make a wiser decision when purchasing one. When it comes to inks, you have to basic options, which are dye-based ink and pigmented ink. It is vital to learn the difference between these two.
The effect on paper
When it comes to printing, the type of paper is as crucial as the type of ink. People use porous paper for every prints and swellable for printing photos. When using dye-based ink on porous paper, you can be able to print a document quickly that will dry faster but with poor quality.
When using dye-based ink on swellable paper, you can manage to print a long lasting photo but the printing will be much slower and it will take up to 7 days for it to dry. On the other hand, when using pigmented ink, you can achieve high quality prints on any paper and the process is very fast.
Absorption and fade resistance
The quality of the print is affected by how the ink is absorbed into the paper. Dye-based inks get absorbed into the fibers of the paper. In contrast, pigmented ink sits on top of the paper because it is made of little, encapsulated particles. Dye-based inks have molecules that are spread out like sand on a beach. For this reason, the ink tends to fade quickly because all the molecules are exposed to hash sunlight and other chemicals.
Pigmented ink has molecules similar to pebbles on the beach. It is harder for sunlight or other chemicals to react with all the molecules because they are hidden. This makes pigmented ink suitable for printing archival documents and photos. In fact, on some types of paper, the ink can last for over a century.
Water resistance
Dye-based inks contain dye, which dissolves in water completely the same way sugar does. Thus, if a drop of water hits the paper, the ink will flow down the paper because the ink will re-dissolve. Pigmented ink does not completely dissolve in water just as flour does not. Hence, it is more water resistant than the other type of ink.