Fountain Pen Ink
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Fountain pen ink is a water-based
ink Ink is a gel, sol, or solution that contains at least one colorant, such as a dye or pigment, and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing or writing with a pen, brush, reed pen, or quill. ...
intended for use with
fountain pen A fountain pen is a writing instrument that uses a metal nib (pen), nib to apply Fountain pen ink, water-based ink, or special pigment ink—suitable for fountain pens—to paper. It is distinguished from earlier dip pens by using an internal r ...
s.


Composition

Fountain pen ink is almost exclusively
dye Juan de Guillebon, better known by his stage name DyE, is a French musician. He is known for the music video of the single "Fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical ele ...
-based because fountain pens operate on the principle of
capillary action Capillary action (sometimes called capillarity, capillary motion, capillary rise, capillary effect, or wicking) is the process of a liquid flowing in a narrow space without the assistance of external forces like Gravitation, gravity. The effe ...
.
Pigment A pigment is a powder used to add or alter color or change visual appearance. Pigments are completely or nearly solubility, insoluble and reactivity (chemistry), chemically unreactive in water or another medium; in contrast, dyes are colored sub ...
-based inks (which contain solid pigment particles in a liquid suspension) tend to clog the narrow passages of the pen.
India ink India ink (British English: Indian ink; also Chinese ink) is a simple black or coloured ink once widely used for writing and printing and now more commonly used for drawing and outlining, especially when inking comic books and comic strips. In ...
, a carbon pigment-based ink, also contains a binder, gum arabic, which can quickly clog such pens. Some pigmented inks do exist for fountain pens, but these ''
nanoparticle A nanoparticle or ultrafine particle is a particle of matter 1 to 100 nanometres (nm) in diameter. The term is sometimes used for larger particles, up to 500 nm, or fibers and tubes that are less than 100 nm in only two directions. At ...
inks'' use pigments that are very finely ground to reduce the chance of clogging. They have the advantage of being waterproof and are used by artists who want to draw lines that will not be affected by a watercolour wash. The ideal fountain pen ink is free-flowing, free of sediment, and non-corrosive. These qualities may be compromised in the interests of permanence, manufacturability and in order to use some widely available dyes. A form of ink that predates fountain pens by centuries is
iron gall ink Iron gall ink (also known as common ink, standard ink, oak gall ink or iron gall nut ink) is a purple-black or brown-black ink made from iron salts and tannic acids from vegetable sources. It was the standard ink formulation used in Europe for t ...
. This blue-black ink is made from iron salts and tannic acid from vegetable sources. Prior to the ready availability of manufactured ink, iron gall ink was often homemade.
Stark's ink Stark's ink is one of a number of types of homemade inks whose recipes were widely available in the 19th century. People often made their own ink before commercially available ink was inexpensively and easily obtainable. James Stark was a chemist ...
was one iron gall ink recipe, named after the Scottish chemist who devised it after spending several decades experimenting with hundreds of formulations. Iron gall ink was used in fountain pens when they were invented but has the disadvantage of causing corrosion to metal parts. Modern formulations of iron gall ink are somewhat less corrosive and are still occasionally used in applications that require permanence. Red inks usually contain the dye
eosin Eosin is the name of several fluorescent acidic compounds which bind to and from salts with basic, or eosinophilic, compounds like proteins containing basic amino acid residues such as histidine, arginine and lysine, and stains them dark red ...
. Blue inks often contain
triarylmethane dye Triarylmethane dyes are synthetic organic compounds containing triphenylmethane backbones. As dyes, these compounds are intensely colored. They are produced industrially as dyes. Families Triarylmethane dyes can be grouped into families accordin ...
. Black inks are mixtures. In addition to water, the non-dye components (collectively referred to as the ''vehicle'') might include polymeric resins,
humectants A humectant is a hygroscopic (water-absorbing) substance used to keep things moist. They are used in many products, including food, cosmetics, medicines and pesticides. When used as a food additive, a humectant has the effect of keeping moisture ...
to retard premature drying, pH modifiers, anti-foaming agents, biocides to prevent fungal and bacterial growth, and wetting agents (
surfactant Surfactants are chemical compounds that decrease the surface tension or interfacial tension between two liquids, a liquid and a gas, or a liquid and a solid. The word ''surfactant'' is a Blend word, blend of "surface-active agent", coined in ...
s). Surfactants reduce the
surface tension Surface tension is the tendency of liquid surfaces at rest to shrink into the minimum surface area possible. Surface tension (physics), tension is what allows objects with a higher density than water such as razor blades and insects (e.g. Ge ...
of the ink; distilled water has a surface tension of 72 dyn/cm (72 × 10−3 N/m), but the desirable value for ink is between 38 and 45 dyn/cm (38 to 45 × 10−3 N/m). If the ink's surface tension were too high, then it would not flow through the pen; if it were too low, then the ink would run out of the pen with less control. Some users mix inks to create their own colours. Some combinations of inks may cause unexpected colour changes, even if the inks are from the same manufacturer. This is a result of chemical reactions between the different components. The colour of many dyes depends on pH, and some lose their colour entirely outside a certain pH range. Mixing inks may also alter the
solubility In chemistry, solubility is the ability of a chemical substance, substance, the solute, to form a solution (chemistry), solution with another substance, the solvent. Insolubility is the opposite property, the inability of the solute to form su ...
of some dye components; for example, an alcohol-based ink may contain components that are insoluble in water, and these will precipitate or coagulate if the alcohol-based ink is mixed with a water-based ink.


Delivery

Fountain pens carry ink within the barrel, traditionally either inserted at one end in bulk with a syringe or eyedropper pipette, or through a mechanical filling system built into the pen (such as a piston or vacuum-pump mechanism). For such fountain pens, ink is available in bottles which will typically refill an individual pen many tens of times. Simpler fountain pens use pre-filled ink cartridges, although in many cases the cartridge can be replaced with a converter which replicates the mechanical filling action of more expensive pens. The cost per millilitre of ink tends to be lower for bottled ink than for cartridges, while cartridges can be simpler to use. Care must be taken when using some vintage pens manufactured from
celluloid Celluloids are a class of materials produced by mixing nitrocellulose and camphor, often with added dyes and other agents. Once much more common for its use as photographic film before the advent of safer methods, celluloid's common present-day ...
, as this material can become stained by long-term exposure to some inks.


Manufacturers

Most fountain pen manufacturers also provide a brand of ink. For example,
Parker Parker may refer to: People * Parker (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Parker (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters with the surname Arts and entertainment * ''Parke ...
sells "
Quink Quink (a portmanteau word, portmanteau from 'quick' and 'ink') is a fountain pen ink developed by the Parker Pen Company. It was introduced in 1931 and has remained in production ever since. Background In 1928, under the direction of Kenneth Pa ...
",
Pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its Aircraft flight control system, directional flight controls. Some other aircrew, aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are al ...
sells "Iroshizuku", Wancher sells "Silk Road", and
Sheaffer Sheaffer Pen Corporation () is an American manufacturing company of writing instruments, particularly luxury fountain pens. The company was founded by Walter A. Sheaffer in Fort Madison, Iowa, and incorporated in 1913 to exploit his inventi ...
sells "Skrip", while manufacturers like Waterman,
Lamy Lamy ( /ˈlɑːmi, ˈlæmi/) is a German pen manufacturing company founded in 1930 by Josef Lamy, a former sales representative for Parker Pen. The company acquired the Orthos pen manufacturer to begin production. Lamy offers a variety of ...
,
Hero A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or Physical strength, strength. The original hero type of classical epics did such thin ...
,
Pelikan Pelikan Holding AG is a German manufacturing company of writing, office and art equipment. Credited with the invention of the differential-piston filling method, the original company was founded in Hanover in 1838 before it went bankrupt and r ...
, Birmingham Pen Company, Thornton's Luxury Goods,
Kaweco Kaweco is a German brand of writing implements, originally introduced by the Heidelberg Pen Company for its dip pens line in 1889. Kaweco became a public limited company in 1921, then being taken over by the Knust Woringen and Grube company (KWG) ...
,
Koh-i-Noor The ; ), also spelled Koh-e-Noor, Kohinoor and Koh-i-Nur, is one of the largest cut diamonds in the world, weighing . It is currently set in the Crown of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. The diamond originated in the Kollur mine in present ...
, Montegrappa and Montblanc sell ink under the same branding as their fountain pens. The recent resurgence in fountain pen use has also created a market for companies that specialize in ink, such as the British company
Diamine Inks Limited Diamine Inks Limited has been producing inks since 1864. It is one of the last surviving writing ink producers in Britain. History The company was founded in London in 1864 as T. Webster and Co. in London, and in Liverpool from 1868. Thomas Webst ...
, the German company De Atramentis, and American companies such as Private Reserve Ink and Noodler's Ink. These companies manufacture ink in dozens of different colours. Some companies that specialize in ink, like Noodler's and Private Reserve Ink, have also created ink with special properties, like glow in the dark, waterproofing, highlighting and indestructible (document) inks.


Durability and security

In the late 20th century, particular attention has been paid by ink manufacturers to the durability of their products against the effects of time, light, moisture, and efforts at forgery or falsification (''see
Check washing Check washing is the process of erasing details from checks to allow them to be rewritten, usually for criminal purposes such as fraudulent withdrawal from the victim's bank account. Various steps can be taken by the writer of the check to reduce ...
''). Some of these inks use pigments – the solid pigment particles lodge between the
cellulose Cellulose is an organic compound with the chemical formula, formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of glycosidic bond, β(1→4) linked glucose, D-glucose units. Cellulose is an important s ...
fibers that make up the paper and are unaffected by attempts to remove them with solvents. Other inks use dyes that chemically bond with the paper's cellulose, and which likewise resist removal by solvents. A disadvantage of the dye inks is that, if spilled, they will form irremovable stains on clothing made from cotton, which also contains cellulose. Also, some "secure" inks are vulnerable to removal using powerful infra-red lasers.


References

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