About Senfa

For over 45 years, Senfa has offered innovative solutions based on cutting-edge French expertise : coating technical textiles. A know-how combining substrates and functionalization to achieve performances such as: blackout, fireproofing, impermeability, diffusion, printability, water repellency, acoustics for large-scale projects. Senfa, technical textiles at the service of designers of impactful and innovative visual experiences.

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EXPERTISE

TECHNOLOGIES PRINTING

SENFA, a French industrial heritage since 1973.

Difference between printing technologies

Ever more technical fabrics and inks

Large Format Digital Printing is increasing all the time. Every year new technological developments, new machines, new inks enable printing on to more and more textiles. In order to satisfy the requirements of the market for printing onto textiles for both indoor and outdoor use, SENFA has developed a large range of coated textiles offering numerous benefits like rendering more vivid colours or making printed media more lightweight to facilitate transport and installation for interior decoration or visual communication.

DEFINITION OF SOLVENT PRINTING TECHNOLOGY

Solvent ink has been commonly used for printing outdoor graphics because of the great resistance to the elements and also a high scratch resistance. Solvent inks penetrate inside the coated media. Very often it is necessary to wait 24 hours after printing with solvent inks to allow for degassing of the residual solvents on the print.

DEFINITION OF UV PRINTING TECHNOLOGY

UV-Curing inks dry after contact with a UV-lamp attached to the printhead carriage. There are little or no VOC’s and reduced odour compared to the solvent inks. UV-prints can be finished (applied or laminated) immediately because they are dry and do not require degassing. UV-curing inks sit as an extra layer on top of the coated media resulting very often in vivid and dense colours.

DEFINITION OF DIRECT OR TRANSFER SUBLIMATION TECHNOLOGY

Sublimation printing onto textiles is experiencing a very strong growth. Sublimation is the action whereby inks go from liquid state to case to dry solid practically immediately once passed through a heat calender. Our products enable an excellent performance during the sublimation process. The images have very vivid colours with excellent contrasts because the colours enter into the structure of the fabric. Sublimation inks are water-based and much less polluting than other technologies.

DEFINITION OF LATEX PRINTING TECHNOLOGY

Latex inks are resin based and dry immediately after heating. Like UV-curing inks they sit on top of the media and are generally more flexible because of their resin based composition.