In a typical inkjet recording or printing system, ink droplets are ejected from a nozzle at high speed towards a recording element or medium to produce an image on the medium. The ink droplets, or recording liquid, generally comprise a recording agent, such as a dye or pigment, and a large amount of solvent. The solvent, or carrier liquid, typically is made up of water and an organic material such as a monohydric alcohol, a polyhydric alcohol or mixtures thereof.
An inkjet recording element typically comprises a support having on at least one surface thereof an ink-receiving or image-receiving layer, and includes those intended for reflection viewing, which have an opaque support, and those intended for viewing by transmitted light, which have a transparent support.
It is well known that in order to achieve and maintain photographic-quality images on such an image-recording element, an inkjet recording element must:                be readily wetted so there is no puddling, i.e., coalescence of adjacent ink dots, which leads to nonuniform density        exhibit no image bleeding        exhibit high gloss        exhibit the ability to absorb high concentrations of ink and dry quickly to avoid elements blocking together when stacked against subsequent prints or other surfaces        exhibit no discontinuities or defects due to interactions between the support and/or layer(s), such as cracking, repellencies, comb lines and the like        not allow unabsorbed dyes to aggregate at the free surface causing dye crystallization, which results in bloom or bronzing effects in the image areas        have an optimized image fastness to avoid fade from contact with water or radiation by daylight, tungsten light, or fluorescent light        
Inkjet recording elements known in the art include porous recording elements that have a porous image-receiving layer coated on one or both sides of a porous or nonporous support. The porous image-receiving layer can consist of a single or multiple layer coating. Typically, a porous image-receiving layer consists mostly of inorganic or organic particles and a small amount of binder such as a hydrophilic polymer. The particles are packed in the image-receiving layer and pores are formed between them. These pores must be sufficiently large and interconnected so that the recording liquid passes quickly through the layer and away from the outer surface to give the impression of fast drying.
While a wide variety of different types of porous recording elements for use with inkjet printing are known, there are many unsolved problems in the art and many deficiencies in the known products, which have severely limited their commercial usefulness. A major challenge in the design of a porous image-receiving layer is to be able to provide simultaneously an almost instantaneous ink dry time, high gloss and good image quality using inexpensive materials and manufacturing means.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,387,473 B1; U.S. Ser. No. 2002/0076531 A1; EP 1 080 934 A1; JP 02-956232 B2; and JP 10-217599 A relate to inkjet recording elements comprising particles, binder, and a fluorosurfactant. The problem with these recording elements is that they are nonporous and therefore dry very slowly when printed on with inkjet inks.
JP 2001-246838 A2 describes recording papers for inkjet printing which comprise inorganic fine particles and fluorine-containing amphoteric surfactants. The problem with these recording papers is that they are prepared using fumed inorganic oxides that are relatively expensive.
JP 2001-150805 A describes a method of manufacturing a recording material for inkjet printing in which the recording material comprises fumed inorganic oxide particles, binder and fluorosurfactant. The problem with this method is that the fumed inorganic oxide particles are relatively expensive, and costly manufacturing steps are needed to disperse the particles to a sub-micron particle size in order to prepare a useful coating.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds