Original Research Article Paper for Screen Printing Applications – A Paper Development Study

Screen printing originated in China during the Song dynasty (960-1279 CE) and is used today in commercial and artistic applications. The presented research project describes the development of a screen-printing product for studio art applications. The improvement of the paper properties from laboratory and small 12-inch laboratory paper machine art paper development, followed by a semi commercial production at a speed of 128 ft/min on a 48-inch semi commercial paper machine for the final art paper, showed an improvement throughout the development process for mechanical and optical paper properties. The finished art paper product exceeded the expectations by the artist using the art paper in the studio. The produced art paper with a basis weight of 63 g/m² and a thickness of 94 µm is produced from a mixture of 70% northern bleached hardwood Kraft pulp and 30% northern bleached softwood Kraft pulp. The ISO brightness and opacity of the art paper bluish gray colour was at 35.6% and 100%, The ISO color value was for the L*, a*, b* Hunter color scale 65.8%, 0.9, and 1-0.7 respectively. As a parameter for attachment of water-based inks, surface roughness was for the top side 1703 ml/min and bottom side (wire side) 1336 ml/min. The Cobb number indicating water penetration of the art paper is 28.9 g/m².Bending stiffness in machine direction and cross machine direction resulted in 22 mN and 12 mN respectively. The tensile index was measured at 52.9 N·m/g for the machine direction and 31.6 N·m/g for de cross-machine direction.