SILICA ENCAPSULATED PIGMENTS FOR NANO-METALLOGRAPHY

The invention relates to a method of printing onto the surface of a substrate, which method comprises a. coating a donor surface with individual particles, b. treating the surface of the substrate to render the affinity of the particles to at least selected regions of the surface of the substrate greater than the affinity of the particles to the donor surface, and c. contacting the surface of the substrate with the donor surface to cause particles to transfer from the donor surface only to the treated selected regions of the surface of the substrate, thereby exposing regions of the donor surface from which particles are transferred to the corresponding regions on the substrate, and wherein that at least 50 wt. % of the particles are metal pigments comprising a metallic substrate and a surface treatment of the metallic substrate, wherein the surface treatment of the metallic substrate comprises at least one coating layer surrounding the metallic substrate comprising a metal oxide, and a surface modification of the metal oxide layer comprising at least one heteropolysiloxane or a compound having at least two terminal functional groups which are the same or different from each other and which are spaced by a spacer, wherein at least one terminal functional group is capable of being chemically bound to the metal oxide layer.