As the textile industry accelerates its transformation to digitalisation and greening, pigment digital printing is gradually becoming the mainstream solution for digital printing because of its environmental protection, energy saving, and high-efficiency advantages.
This article will cover technical principles, market trends, environmental advantages, application areas, and other perspectives. It will also analyze why pigment digital printing is the trend.
What is Pigment Digital Printing?
Pigment digital printing refers to the use of pigment ink to print directly on the textile surface through digital inkjet. Without the need for washing and steaming processes, to achieve environmentally friendly and efficient printing methods.
Compared with the traditional reactive and disperse printing methods, pigment printing has the following significant advantages:
- No need for sizing, steaming, and washing, greatly reducing water consumption
- A wide range of applicable fabrics, including cotton, linen, polyester, blends, etc., can be directly printed
- Excellent colour fastness, especially high fastness to dry and wet friction
- It is a simple process that shortens the production cycle and reduces labour and energy costs
Rapid Growth of Coating Digital Printing Market
According to many market research reports, in the next five years, the global pigment digital printing market will maintain high growth, in which China, India, Southeast Asia, and other emerging textile manufacturing centers will become the main force of growth. The following trends are worth paying attention to:
Green environmental protection has become a necessity:
The policy of printing and dyeing emissions regulation is becoming increasingly stringent, pigment printing to reduce water pollution and carbon emissions, in line with the direction of sustainable development.
Short version of the fast reverse demand growth:
Cross-border e-commerce, personalised customisation, and other business models are developing rapidly, driving up demand for flexible production.
Simplification of the process of enhancing the efficiency of the process:
From the design to the finished product in just a few hours, greatly enhances the response rate and market responsiveness. Response time and market responsiveness are greatly improved.
Pigment ink technology continues to evolve
As printhead precision improves and ink technology is optimised, pigment inks continue to break through in terms of finesse, vibrancy, and softness.
Modern high-performance coating ink not only achieves high-resolution printing but also maintains a good feel and high fastness.
Currently, on the market, mainstream pigment ink products are mostly water-based, in line with REACH and OEKO-TEX and other environmental certification standards.
A wide range of application scenarios to create more value
Pigment digital printing technology has been widely used in the following fields:
Apparel industry: T-shirts, sweaters, children’s clothing and other products with rapid small batch printing
Home textile field: curtains, pillows, bedding, and other personalised pattern customisation
Decorative fabrics: backdrop fabrics, wall cloths, canvas bags and other fashion patterns printing
Cultural and IP products: niche tide brand, art derivatives personalised output
These application scenarios fully reflect the flexibility and high added value of paint printing
Choose pigment digital printing, grasp the first opportunity for green development
With the background of ‘double carbon’ and the rapid changes in the market, pigment digital printing is no longer optional. Still, a new round of textile industry upgrading is an important direction.
Whether from the perspective of environmental protection or the efficiency and market responsiveness, the choice of coating digital printing technology is a key step for enterprises to walk at the forefront of the times.


