Dye-sublimation printing is a digital printing technology using full color artwork that works with polyester and polymer-coated substrates. Also referred to as digital sublimation, the process is commonly used for decorating apparel and other items with sublimation-friendly surfaces. The end result of the sublimation process is a permanent, high resolution, full color print because the dyes are infused into the substrate at the molecular level, rather than applied at a topical level (such as with screen printing and direct to garment printing...

Sustainable Clothing:

The world’s resources cannot keep up with our increasing demand for throw-away fashion. Cotton, for example, a key input to the apparel industry, is responsible for 2.6 per cent of the global water use. However, a gap already exists between water supply and demand. If we do nothing to correct this imbalance, by 2030 demand for water will exceed supply by 40%. Furthermore, an estimated 17 to 20% of industrial water pollution comes from textile dyeing and treatment and an estimated 8,000 synthetic chemicals are used throughout the world to turn raw materials into textiles, many of which will be released into freshwater sources. And it is not only the production of raw material that is water-intensive, the wet processing of clothing, such as wash­ing and dyeing, also consumes huge amounts of water.

Traditional dye sublimation has the potential to be one of the most environmentally friendly printing processes. The inks used in sublimation are actually converted directly from a solid to a gas when absorbed by the garment, so it requires no water waste. However, a heat transfer and sublimation are two very different things.