The penetration profiles of inkjet inks into laboratory substrates with barley pulp

Increased worldwide environmental awareness has led to a substantial increase in the use of recycled papers and new alternative sources of cellulose fibres to manufacture new paper. As recovered wood fibres do not provide the same level of paper quality as the virgin ones, alternative sources of cellulose fibers are continuously sought and researched. In this paper, the penetration profiles of UV inkjet inks within laboratory substrates formed with the addition of barley pulp in different weight proportions into pulp from recycled paper were observed. All the results have been compared to the control sample, respectively laboratory substrate produced only from recycled paper pulp. Penetration profiles were performed by observing and analyzing the microscopic images captured in the region of interest from a cross section of a pre-molded specimen into an epoxy resin. The aim of this paper is to examine whether the proportion of non-wood fibres effects the print quality, and to propose which fiber ratio is the most acceptable for paper production.