Scientists predicts ink droplets

Scientists have developed a way of predicting if ink can be used in printers, according to its ability to produce droplets.

Engineers in Cambridge have invented a controlled model of a print head that simulates the making of droplets in printers. It illustrated the difficulty of creating printheads that make appropriate-sized droplets.

Dr Alfonso Arturo Castrejón-Pita told The Engineer: "Most conventional print heads will produce very small droplets but only under very specific conditions with a very specific ink - so if you change the ink properties even by a very small amount most printers will stop working."

Using water and glycerine, the engineers recorded the effects of viscosity, surface density and density in a diagram that can now predict whether a liquid can be broken down into droplets.

Leader of the projects Professor Ian Hutchings said: "Our regime diagram can predict whether or not a certain liquid can be broken into useful droplets; it is, in simple words, a rule of thumb to determine whether a liquid can be used to produce a droplet or not."

Copyright Press Association 2012