In recent years, pigment inks have made significant progress in the field of digital textiles, but this was not always the case, and even a few years ago, dye-based inks were the more popular choice.

Mexar is a UK-based specialist developer of water-based inkjet inks for industrial digital printing applications. Starting in 2008, Mexar LTD saw an opportunity in pigment inks and jumped into this niche market. Mexar's emphasis on pigment-based digital textile inks has paid off. Innovation and service are key to Mexar's success in the textile decoration market.

"At the time, we noticed that there was a gap in the inkjet market with one company focused on developing water-based pigment inks for textile printing," says Dr. Andy Hancock, Managing Director of Mexar. All the other big inkjet companies in the textile space were focused on dye-based inks, so as a small company we had to carve out a niche, and pigment-based inks were the natural choice."

Dr. Hancock has a PhD in inkjet formulations and his background is in inkjet chemistry, so he used this technical knowledge to focus solely on water-based ink formulations using pigments and adhesives to try to develop the textile inkjet market.

"At the time, direct-to-garment (DTG) printing was a new technology, and the idea of roll-to-roll textile inkjet printing was talked about a lot, but the technology (including ink and sprinkler heads) was not ready yet," adds Dr. Hancock. "We knew that pigment textile inks would play an important role in textile printing technology at some point, however we underestimated how long it would take!"

Today, Mexar's main focus is on the textile decoration market.

"We have sublimation and pigment inks for many different key nozzle technologies, as well as direct garment (DTG) and direct film (DTF) inks," reports Dr. Hancock. "We have all been surprised at how quickly the DTF market has been adopted by the apparel decoration market, and the screen printing community has really embraced the concept. This is growing at a tremendous rate."

Mexar's ability to react quickly to the market sets it apart from its competitors.

"At Mexar, we work in a slightly different way than most other ink companies," said Dr. Hancock, "As a small development company, we can react extremely quickly to market conditions, and Mexar's DTF products demonstrate this, as we were one of the first companies outside of China to offer DTF ink solutions. In addition to our rapid development schedule, we can also offer custom formulation work, and if companies have special requirements for inks, we can develop and produce them specifically for them, and in the past we have also licensed ink formulations."

Innovation and service are critical to Mexar's success.

"Innovation and service are the keys to our longevity," says Dr. Hancock, "We have been in business for 15 years and we would not be here without the constant development of products and the constant pursuit of formulations."

"Excellent customer service is also essential," he adds. "As a small company, we can't rely on a large marketing budget and many times have to rely on word-of-mouth referrals that wouldn't exist without a high level of customer service."

Recently, Mexar announced the OEKO-TEX ECO PASSPORT certification, validating the path the company has taken.

"Getting the Eco-passport is a big win for us," says Dr Hancock. "All companies are under more pressure to prove their eco-credentials and we strive to create the best formula by using raw materials with the least impact. For example, we try to source our raw materials as close as possible without compromising quality. We reformulate a lot of our inks to remove some of the more harmful glycols and always look for responsible sources, such as the fact that all the glycerin we use comes from plant pulp from non-palm sources.

"Our major recent product launches are DTF inks (CMYK and white) for the apparel decoration market and roll-to-roll pigment inks for textile decoration," he notes. "Both of these inks are within our eco-passport, and both of our product lines are experiencing strong growth."

Dr. Hancock noted that he is optimistic about Mexar's future as the market for pigment-based textiles grows.

"We have a fantastic young team who are constantly working behind the scenes to develop new products, support or manufacture our existing lines," he said, "The textile printing industry is undergoing a revolution towards digital printing and we like to think we have played a role in this development, especially when it comes to the work we have done with pigment-based textile inks." While not many end users have heard of Mexar, through our years of working together, we have more formulations than most people realize.

"For Mexar, my outlook for the next five years is that our production capacity will need to increase significantly to keep up with demand," added Dr. Hancock. "The pigment inkjet textile printing market is just beginning to scratch the surface and there is still a lot of room for growth.