With the increasing awareness of environmental protection and energy conservation, ink-jet printing technology has attracted much attention in recent years. In this work, attempts have been made to prepare novel dye-based inks for printing wool/acrylic blend fabrics using cationic reactive dyes in ink’s formulation. After the dyes were milled, various auxiliaries were added into dye dispersion solution. The effect of dispersant, polyols, surfactants, and pH regulator on ink properties has been investigated to obtain the optimum condition of each ink. The stability of inks was also measured. Then the wool/acrylic blend fabrics were digitally printed and the color performance as well as color fastness of printed fabrics were also studied. Experimental results showed that all the auxiliaries had significant impact on properties of inks. The optimal formulations for inks as following: cationic reactive dyes were 10 % w/w, dispersant (dispersant IW) was 25 % w/w, polyols (ethylene glycol) was 15 % w/w, surfactant (XP-70) was 1.5 % w/w, and pH regulator (triethanolamine) was 0.02 % w/w. Except for Dye 3 (D3)-based ink, the other three inks showed satisfactory storing stability in 90 days. Additionally, the wool/acrylic blend fabrics printed with Dye 1 (D1), Dye 2 (D2), Dye 4 (D4)-based inks exhibited excellent union color properties and color fastness.
