Textile treatment for sublimation ink transfers

Abstract

Compositions and methods for treating textile materials so as to facilitate transfer of an image thereto using a dye sublimation transfer system are provided. The compositions are applied to the textile in the form of an aqueous pretreatment composition, which comprises a polymer resin and a crosslinking agent. The resin and crosslinking agent are cured upon the textile material to form an image-receiving area. The sublimation transfer system is then applied to the image-receiving area to form a finished, image-bearing textile product.

We claim: 
     
         1 . A cotton-containing textile material having a quantity of a composition applied to at least an image-receiving area thereof, the composition comprising
 from about 5% to about 30% by weight of one or more water-dispersible polymer resins;   from about 0.25% to about 10% by weight of one or more melamine crosslinking agents;   from about 50% to about 90% by weight of water; and   from about 0.25% to about 10% by weight of glass particles.   
     
     
         2 . The textile material according to  claim 1 , wherein the composition is applied to the textile material in an amount of from about 0.05 to about 1 g/in 2 . 
     
     
         3 . The textile material according to  claim 1 , wherein at least a portion of the water in the composition is removed after application to the textile material. 
     
     
         4 . The textile material according to  claim 1 , wherein the one or more water-dispersible polymer resins and the one or more melamine crosslinking agents are reacted on the textile material to form a crosslinked-polymer coating. 
     
     
         5 . The textile material according to  claim 4 , wherein the textile material further comprises an image formed within the image-receiving area comprising the dye of one or more sublimation inks. 
     
     
         6 . The textile material according to  claim 1 , wherein the textile material comprises 100% cotton. 
     
     
         7 . The textile material according to  claim 6 , wherein the textile material is a T-shirt. 
     
     
         8 . The textile material according to  claim 1 , wherein the one or more water-dispersible polymer resins comprises polyester resins, polyurethane resins, or polyester-polyurethane resins. 
     
     
         9 . The textile material according to  claim 1 , wherein the composition comprises from about 10% to about 30% by weight of the one or more water-dispersible polymer resins. 
     
     
         10 . The textile material according to  claim 1 , wherein the composition comprises from 18% to about 30% by weight of the one or more water-dispersible polymer resins. 
     
     
         11 . The textile material according to  claim 1 , wherein the one or more water-dispersible polymer resins are formulated as a water-based dispersion. 
     
     
         12 . The textile material according to  claim 1 , wherein the composition comprises from about 0.5% to about 5% by weight of the one or more melamine crosslinking agents. 
     
     
         13 . The textile material according to  claim 1 , wherein the one or more melamine crosslinking agents comprises an alkylated melamine-formaldehyde resin. 
     
     
         14 . The textile material according to  claim 1 , wherein the one or more melamine crosslinking agents are formulated with isobutanol. 
     
     
         15 . The textile material according to  claim 1 , wherein the composition comprises from about 0.25% to about 10% by weight of a silica material. 
     
     
         16 . The textile material according to  claim 1 , wherein the composition comprises from about 0.5% to about 12% by weight of one or more plasticizers. 
     
     
         17 . The textile material according to  claim 16 , wherein the one or more plasticizers comprises a benzoic acid. 
     
     
         18 . The textile material according to  claim 1 , wherein the composition comprises from about 0.5% to about 5% by weight of the glass particles. 
     
     
         19 . The textile material according to  claim 1 , wherein the glass particles have an average particle size of from about 7 to about 10 μm. 
     
     
         20 . The textile material according to  claim 1 , wherein the composition comprises from about 65% to about 90% by weight of water.