At this year’s FESPA Global Print Expo 2026 in Barcelona (19-22 May), Sun Chemical highlighted improvements to its Xennia Sapphire pigment inks.
At this year’s FESPA Global Print Expo 2026 in Barcelona (19-22 May), Sun Chemical highlighted improvements to its Xennia Sapphire pigment inks, as the company continues efforts to strengthen pigment printing’s position within roll-to-roll digital textile production.
The company originally launched the Xennia Sapphire pigment inks in 2025 and said the range had already generated positive market feedback around print performance and colour strength. Following additional development work, Sun Chemical has now introduced enhanced wash and rub fastness performance while maintaining the high level of light fastness typically associated with pigment inks, which has been a longstanding compromise associated with roll-to-roll digital textile pigment printing, according to Sun Chemical’s product and marketing manager, Simon Daplyn.
He added: “This advancement helps eliminate the traditional trade-off between colour intensity and durability, delivering stronger, longer-lasting results without compromise.”
Despite continued advances in pigment technology, Sun Chemical acknowledged that reactive inks still retain important advantages on cotton applications because of the fundamental differences in fixation chemistry.
Daplyn explained: “Reactive dyes form covalent chemical bonds directly with cotton fibres, while pigment inks depend on solid particles that must be mechanically fixed
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