Fountain pen ink is a liquid composed of dyes, water, and other additives. Fountain pens and liquid ink rollerballs use ink that is basically colored dye in water. Standard roller ink is made up of particles of soot, a pigmented substance. Carbon black, a pigment derived from coal and petroleum, is an integral part of black ink in ballpoint pens.
Pen ink is made of dyes and pigments that have been dissolved in a mixture of oil and water. The dye determines the color of the ink. Some inks have additional polymers added to them in order to raise their viscosity, and most pigments used to color ink are organic compounds.
On average, ballpoint pen ink is made up of particles of dye or pigment. Water-based ballpoint pens that use colored ink are not waterproof. Old-fashioned writing inks, such as fountain pens, use a water-based liquid dye system.
How Pigments and Dyes Are Used
In addition to writing instruments, dyes are used to color fibers, and pigments are used for paints and cosmetics. Some newer inks use pigments instead of dyes, but these are relatively rare. Some inks contain pigments instead of dyes, making colors appear more vibrant and bold.
The color of the ink depends on water-soluble dyes, or water-insoluble pigments. The color of the ink depends on dyes or pigments and solvents such as oil or water. Black is the standard ink color, derived from organic pigment carbon. Color typewriter inks use a mixture of colored dyes, usually with a small amount of carbon pigment to increase opacity.
White pigments such as titanium dioxide are used as white pigments or to correct the characteristics of color inks. Coloring inks are often used for pens with bright colors and smooth writing, while pigmented inks are characterized by their light colors and fast drying. However, modern ballpoint pen inks contain soluble dyes and/or insoluble pigmented dyes with fast-drying or glycol-enhanced additives.
A Few Pen Inks Use Pigment Rather than Dyes
There are inks like Platinum Carbon Ink with pigmented inks rather than dye-based inks, and these are more likely to clog the pen if dry. Non-fountain pen inks (discussed below) may contain additives that can harden inside the fountain pen and clog it. Some brands produce very finely pigmented inks that are safe to use in fountain pens, but are still much more dangerous than regular fountain pen inks.
Washing or dissolving documents made by many “permanent” pens can potentially remove ink without a trace. In addition to dyes, many “permanent” pens contain soluble metallic inks composed of ferrous sulfate, gallic acid, and tannic acid.
Solvents are usually petrochemicals and quickly evaporate from the ink. Alcohol or petroleum solvent inks dry by evaporation, usually by heating the paper. Once dry, the ink is water resistant, but can be damaged by some solvents, including acetone and various alcohols.
Pen Manufacturers and Their Approach to Ink
Pen manufacturers use surfactants such as alkylalkanolamide to lower the surface tension of the solution so it can soak into the sticker before the ink dries. To ensure that the ink is absorbed into the paper before it dries, pen ink companies use surfactants such as alkanolamine alkyl.
When you need to refill the pen, you can mix the slurry with water to get the correct ink consistency. You can add more water to fill the paste in the pen, or you can use thick blue ink with a brush.
You can’t write on the erased part with a pen because the ink will fade on the paper, but Iron Gall ink usually has a thin blue felt tip on the other end that can be used to cover the top. The ink used in the colored pens consists of white ink composed of titanium oxide and metallic gold ink composed of copper-zinc alloy. More than 90% of inks are printing inks, where color is imparted by pigments rather than the dyes used in writing inks. For writing inks, dyes are often preferred over pigments, which do not disperse well enough and tend to clog the nib.
Different Inks Across the Art Forms
Writing inks typically consist of dyes dispersed in water and chemicals needed to ensure uniform dispersion and stability. Calligraphy inks often use pigments rather than dyes, which clog the pen’s power supply, and sometimes contain shellac to make the result shiny. In addition to pigments, early black writing inks contained various amounts of other ingredients.
The most obvious ingredient in tl;DR (Too Long; Not Read) pen ink is a dye or pigment, but it also contains polymers, stabilizers, and water to help the ink flow properly. Ink consists of pigments or dyes dissolved or dispersed in a liquid called a carrier. Chemists think of inks as colloidal systems of small pigment particles dispersed in a solvent (chemical inks consist of a colorant (usually a pigment or dye) plus a carrier, or it could just be water, a natural substance, or a synthetic substance). chemical composition.
When a gelling agent is mixed with a water-based ink, gel ink has the unique property of becoming very viscous in the pen but changing to a low viscosity when writing.
The Use of Alcohols in Ink
The alcohols in ballpoint pen inks also help them dry quickly, making them suitable for left-handed writers. Rollerball pens use thinner, water-based inks to keep them liquid, but ballpoint pen inks are based on organic compounds as the carrier, often one of the two. Bic ballpoint pen ink consists of a dye completely dissolved in an oil-based paste. Ballpoint pen, marker and felt tip inks contain water or organic solvents such as propylene glycol, alcohol and toluene.
Various chemical additives are mixed into the composition of ballpoint pen inks to improve the quality and usability of the pen. The difference between the more common pen inks, oil-based inks and water-based inks is only whether the solvent is an organic solvent containing alcohol or water. Color printing inks are primarily made from linseed oil, soybean oil or heavy petroleum distillates as a solvent (called a vehicle) mixed with organic pigments.
