For those of you who have always wondered what the truth was about the types of inks used ink inkjet printers here it is....

...There are two distinct classes of inkjet inks, Water Solvent Base Inkjet Inks and Non-Water Solvent Base Inkjet Inks. All CURRENT models of inkjet printers with a print width of less than 24" use Water Solvent Based inkjet inks. Only a very few printers use Non-Water Solvent Base inks and they all have print widths wider than 24".

The term Pigment Base and Dye Base inks are misnomers used to describe common water solvent base inkjet inks used in desktop printers. Base refers to the type of material in which the colorant component of the ink can suspended or dissolved.

Non-Water Solvent Base Inkjet Inks

Non-Water Solvent Base inkjet inks utilize an oil or alcohol as the primary solvent of the ink formula. This type of base permits the use of soluble dyes with water proof properties and very powerful UV resistance to be used in an inkjet printer. Such dyes are normally not soluble in water or ink alcohols which would be miscible in water. The primary reason this type of ink is not used in small desktop printers is twofold: They are much more expensive than most water solvent inks, and they can be hazardous to your health. Such inks can contain Xylene or Toluene, which are known carcinogens and are flammable, certainly not something you want your kids playing around. They can also contain flammable alcohols, or toxic materials. Therefore, the use of such materials is usually restricted to printers used in a more industrial setting. Printheads capable of using these inks must have solvent resistant joins to prevent printhead damage from the solvents.

Water Solvent Base Inkjet Inks

These types of inkjet inks are more "family" friendly. Non-toxic, non-flammable, and as so far non-carcinogenic, these types of inks are much safer to use in a home and office environment and offer a more eco-friendly way of printing.

There are two types of colorants commonly used in water solvent inkjet inks, water soluble dyes and non-soluble pigment suspensions. It is from these two types of colorants that the terms Pigment Base and Dye Base originate.

Water Soluble Dyes are the more common colorant and generally provide the widest color gamut for color printing. They are relatively easy and inexpensive to manufacture (compared to other types of inkjet inks). They have the lowest support issues and can be used in inexpensive to manufacture printheads. They also have some of the weakest longevity ratings and have poor UV resistance.

Pigment Suspensions are common ink black inks but less common in color inks. Most Canon, HP, and Lexmark printers use a Pigment Suspension colorant for the Black text cartridges in their 4-color printers. Modern black pigment suspension colorant requires no dispersant when used as a text grade colorant and has excellent drop formation control and excellent archival properties and UV resistance. It does not work well in photographic applications as it does not blend well with other types of ink. It also works poorly and glossy photo papers.

Color Pigment Suspensions (including black suspensions for graphic application) must utilize a dispersant to maintain proper suspension of the pigment particles in solution since like the text pigment, the particles are not soluble in water. Most color pigments are made of chemically generated color plastic polymers that are ground to very fine particles then coated with a dispersant to help the particles develop a slight static charge. The static charge helps keep the particles suspended in low viscosity bases (such as water) suitable for inkjet printers. Unfortunately, the combination of the polymer and dispersant produces rather dull colors and require very high pigment loads to produce results even moderately acceptable. For years the use of color pigments was limited to more expensive wide format printers which could use complicated software to layer the pigment to produce dense colors. Desktop printers could not use pigment colors except under the most high demand conditions as the pigment would eventually agglomerate (clump together) and clog cartridges.

Using the Pigment Ink in a printer designed for Dye Ink

Before you should consider this issue you must be aware of the main differences between a printer which is engineered for dye ink and one engineered for pigment ink.

A dye printer is driven to place droplets in such a way so as to take advantage of the translucency of the inks to provide the optimum color match. A pigment printer is driven to lay its ink in order to work with the opacity of the pigment. A hybrid printer like the Epson Stylus Photo 2200 is drive to optimize the translucency of the dispersant tint in relation to the opaque pigment load.

Without special drivers to change droplet layering, no printer can effectively utilize an ink for which it was not originally designed. A prime example is the Epson Stylus Photo 7600. The printer is sold as EITHER a dye ink version or a pigment ink version. The driver software is designed to work with the specific ink type. In addition, the service utilities (include physical components used to clean the printhead) must be designed to work effectively with the type of ink in use. A convertible version could be sold (that could use either ink), but would not make since from a marketing or support standpoint.

Frequently, people have asked whether the Canon S9000 or the Epson Stylus Photo 1280 could run pigment inks. From a purely technical standpoint, no they can't. The Canon S9000 runs at too high a rate of speed and utilizes too compact of a printhead to allow a pigment ink, with sufficient pigment density to produce appropriate color, to run through it effectively. You would spend more time cleaning than printing.

The Epson Stylus Photo 1280 presents a different set of obstacles. First, the driver is designed to layer translucent droplets, not opaque. Second, While the printhead is capable of handling most pigment inks, the cartridges are not. There is a reason why the Epson 2200 utilizes a design with, in effect, no sponge. The thick dispersant combined with the needed pigment load to achieve acceptable colors, would quickly bond to sponge surfaces reducing the replenishment rate of the cartridges. The result is increased head cleanings to eliminate banding and, with long term use, the possibility that agglomeration could occur in the printhead itself causing permanent clogging.

Two specific printer examples are give above, but the same reasoning applies to most other dye ink printers. You should stick with inks that are formulated to take advantage of the features your printer offers. Trying to make a purse out of sows ear could simply result in you being the price of 1 printer poorer in the end, along with all the headache and heartbreak of trying to make your conversion work.