Facile and binder-free fabrication of deep colors on cotton fabrics with hand-feel enhancement via screen printing

Screen printing with pigments features its superiority and versatility and has shown promising applications in color-related fields, whereas pigments have clear advantages among colorants owing to their wide color-range, extensive applicability, and green characteristics such as water and energy saving. However, it requires massive, inevitable addition of binders to improve the affinity and dispersity of pigments during printing, which results in undesired rigidity of printed fabrics. Here, we synthesized an anionic poly (styrene-methyl methacrylate-acrylic acid) absorbed Rhodamine B (RB@PSMA) nanosphere via soap-free emulsion polymerization for printing the cotton fabrics without binders. The prepared color nanospheres RB@PSMA show the good size stability (PDI=0.018) and dispersity (< 299.4 nm). Notably, the strong electrostatic attraction from PSMA nanosphere enables the saturated adsorption of Rhodamine B dyes with ionic bonding. The printed fabrics with RB@PSMA were thus endowed with enhanced color performance (X 2.3 in K/S value) and soft hand feel without binders, differing from original RB printed ones that are usually stiff due to the crosslinking-induced rigidity. This approach may carve a practical avenue in binder-free pigment coloring and provide new prospects for the facile and versatile design of other printing and dyeing technology. [Display omitted] •The prepared colored nanospheres have good dispersion and stability in water•Color nanosphere printing does not require the addition of adhesives•When colored nano microspheres print cotton fabrics, they have better color performance and hand-feel than traditional dye printing