1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink composition for use in an intermediate transfer ink jet recording device and an intermediate transfer ink jet recording method and an intermediate transfer ink jet recording device using the ink composition.
2. Background Art
An ink jet recording system is advantageously excellent in the simplicity of the mechanism and noiseless. This type of printing, however, has problems including that the quality of prints varies depending upon recording media (for example, depending upon properties of recording paper) and also including that the image of a portion remaining undried of an ink image is disturbed when the recording medium is discharged. In order to cope with such problems, a proposal has been made on a method called an "intermediate transfer system" wherein an ink image is once formed on a transfer medium by an ink jet recording process and then transferred to a recording medium (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 225958/1984 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,538,156). In this method, a recording head can be disposed apart from the recording paper. Consequently, this method successfully prevents the recording head from clogging which is due to the possibility that the recording head contacts with the recording paper since they are disposed closely or that paper lint from the recording paper is attached to the recording head. However, in the intermediate transfer ink jet recording method, there is room for an improvement in the quality of the image transferred on the recording medium.
Furthermore, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 2849/1987, 169643/1991 and 284948/1991 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,099,256 propose a method which comprises the steps of ejecting ink droplets on a transfer medium to form an ink image, evaporating a large proportion of water in the ink image to dehydrate the ink image to a substantially dry state and transferring the concentrated ink to recording paper. In this transfer ink jet recording method, however, high pressure is necessary for transferring the ink image to the recording medium, since the bonding force between the recording medium and the ink image is small. The provision of means for applying necessary pressure renders the recording device complicated.