DSF

Having discovered how low down on the learning curve I am, I have been hoping to find some basic information on what is possible, by way of printable surfaces.
I started with the idea that this process is only 'suitable' for polyester fabrics(or mixtures with a high poly content) or solid surfaces that have been given a coating of polyester, but this idea is changing from what I'm reading on the forum.
The fact that the word suitable is used should be a clue to the idea that other things might work, albeit to what might be thought of by experienced printers to be a poor level of dye tranfer, so my enquiry moves on to the chemistry of the process.

I suppose what I'm looking for is someone who could give me an idea of the organic chemistry of the bonding between the ink and the base material involved.

Google searches haven't yet thrown up anything useful, so I'm starting this thread hoping that a forum member could point me to such a source.
John

Polyester as a woven fabric or as a coating on a mug when heated to about 180C at the molecular level is a bit like a bit of fishing line that has opened up like a chinese finger puzzle with pressure applied to the ends to make it open up. The sublimation ink turns to a gas at about 180C and the coloured gas gets inside the polyester filaments while it has opened up.

When it cools all the gaps close up and the coloured gas is trapped inside and as it cools the gas also turns solid again. So the ink colour is actually inside the polyester thats why it does not wash out or rub off.

Hi ArferMo.
Yes, the image of polymer chains unraveling as they warm up is a good explanation to me of how the dye particles are physically trapped, but unfortunately doesn't explain why other polymers with branched or straight chains don't behave in the same way.

When I left school about 60 years ago, I went to work in an analytical research lab at ICI Plastics, but I would be the first to admit that within 3 years I realised that I would never make it as an industrial chemist. But at least it left me with a desire to know how things worked, so it's really the chemistry I'm after. Then I could make a stab at what else might or might not work.

John