Yes. It often contains trace elements of metals and other chemicals all dependent on the method of distillation. That's probably the reason for the oem addition of things like EDTA in order to sequester heavy metals. They also use things such as a biocide and hydrogen peroxide to purify the inks. In a sense, it's easier for experimenters (like Paul) to come up with suitable substitutes for oem formulations because we don't necessarily need to worry about having things grow in our inks during long storage as we can compound them at will and use them up fairly quickly. We can also target specific needs and ignore the attributes we don't care about, while oems have to target as broad an audience as possible and need to care about how well their ink works with something like recycled paper in a commercial environment. Since we aren't in the business of selling things, we also can take advantage of all that very expensive research done by the oems. Seiko Epson alone has well over 29,000 patents listed in the US. In the last 6 months there have been more than 25 ink related patents that I've seen listed to them. For the intellectually curious the patent databases are a virtual paradise. Regards Duane --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "steve_wadlington" <steve_wadlington@...> wrote: > > An interesting note that I found in the past; "distilled water" that > we think is neutral PH can often be around 6.0 or so.
Message
Re: Ink mixing base pH control with Triethanolamine (TEA)
2008-12-23 by dlruckus