In the ceramic sector, digital printers are preferred over traditional printing technologies. Solvent-based inks are the most preferred inkjet inks in digital printing machines. Inkjet inks used in the ceramic sector mostly include color pigments and solvents. Conventional solvent-based inks are less environmentally friendly and more harmful, but they dry faster due to the rapid evaporation of gases contained within them. For this reason, they are highly preferred in the ceramic industry. It is widely recognized that primary colors such as blue, brown, yellow, and black are globally utilized in the tile industry. Solvent-based inkjet inks are transferred from their barrels into the digital printing machine before being used in the ceramic tile industry. The residual ink that remained in the barrel and settled to the bottom over time is kept for disposal. The objective of the study is to obtain brown pigment by recycling the small amount of residue left in the brown inkjet paint barrel before the disposal process and. The brown dye collected during the study was subjected to heat treatment on a thin steel tray. Following the combustion process, brown powder paint pigments were obtained from the scraped layer using a spatula. The obtained paint pigments were kept in glass bottles, subjected to dry-rotation process in the mill for three minutes to homogenize the grains, and sieved through a 125-micron mesh sieve. To apply the sieved powder pigment, granular masses used in the ceramic tile industry were compressed into 5x10 cm sizes, and test plates were then obtained. To observe the interaction of the brown dye pigment, various amounts of dye was tested with various solvents such as 5 ml water, synthetic thinner, cellulosic thinner, gasoline, and diesel fuel at 1200°C, following the specified recipes. The interaction of the residual brown dye pigment with cellulosic thinner was observed to be more suitable compared to other solvents, resulting in less color distribution and agglomeration. It was concluded that the brown dye pigment obtained after solvent removal can be recycled and used.
Keywords: Blue solvent-based inkjet paint, ceramic industry, recycling