The influence of heat treatment on print mottle of screen printed textile knitted fabrics

Printed fabric is widely used, and it is exposed to various influences. One unavoidable impact is heat treatment during subsequent maintenance - ironing. Hence, many printed textile materials are exposed to different temperatures. Textile can be printed with conventional (screen) and digital (Inkjet) print technologies. In this paper, we analyzed screen printed textile and its sustainability after heat treatment. Heat can not only change the reproduced colour, but also affects the print uniformity (print mottle). The goal of this paper was to find what could be controlled and changed in order to get long-lasting printed textile. We used one natural textile material - cotton that was printed with screen print technology. Constant parameter during the experiment was a time of heat treatment. Ironing temperature and screen mesh count were varied. Results showed that samples printed with smaller screen mesh count maintain print uniformity after heat treatment.