by Cassandra Balentine
Industrial inkjet innovations drive the future of ceramics. New printheads improve precision, temperature resistance, and glaze compatibility on this type of surface, paving the way for more creative tile designs and decorative objects.
Above: Innovative Digital Systems’ RevHDL, TwinRev 360, and RevPro 360 rotary printers are designed to meet the growing needs of ceramic decorators. These systems combine high-speed printing, contour capability, and robust adhesion.
Shane O’Neill, director of business development, FUJIFILM Dimatix, Inc., states that the ceramic tile industry has transitioned from analog rotary printing to non-contact inkjet printing. “This shift enables producers to address the need for productivity, uptime, waste mitigation, and print designs on a wider variety of tile base materials.”
One of the biggest shifts Neil Cook, business development manager, Xaar, notices is the move towards aqueous glazes and more efficient, lean production processes. “As tile formats get larger, the production process changes and you lose some of the natural surface structure you’d traditionally get. That structure now needs to be recreated with glazes and special effects.”
Extensive Innovation
Within the ceramic tile industry over the last several years, O’Neill notes extensive technology innovation, both from a hardware/software perspective, as well as from the fluid and chemistry side of the market. “OEMs are developing intelligent printing machines with innovations to ensure the output from the printers are of a very high quality, optimizing productivity and increasing yields and throughput.”
The ability to jet at a high viscosity, large particle size, and highly loaded fluids—including glass frits—opens up a variety of decorative techniques.
“Printheads that can jet large particles and high-solid content fluids enable manufacturers to digitally apply those functional and decorative layers with much greater control. Compared with analog systems, which often put down too much material, inkjet allows you to deposit exactly what you need, where you need it—reducing waste, drying time, and overall cost while still delivering the required surface structure,” notes Cook.
Innovations like Xaar’s Ultra High Viscosity and High Laydown technologies allow unique decorative effects such as relief textures, matte finishes, metallics, and luster. “Xaar’s Aquinox printhead spearheads this innovation with its true through-flow architecture, thanks to Xaar’s unique TF Technology, ensuring reliable jetting of challenging fluids including aqueous-based inks with up to 50 percent solids and particle sizes up to D90(v) ≤ 3 microns,” explains Michael Walsh, director of technical sales, Xaar.
FUJIFILM Dimatix focuses on improving performance, productivity, and durability of its printheads to withstand harsh operating conditions in industrial printing environments. “The repairability of FUJIFILM Dimatix STARFIRE printheads allow a technician to disassemble and repair the printhead without the need to replace the complete printbar unit,” shares O’Neill.
Michael Perrelli, sales director, Innovative Digital Systems, believes the biggest leap in capacities is printing around handled items through direct to object inkjet—a clear improvement over traditional dye-sublimation and pad printing.
High-gap technology now allows printing on irregular or contoured ceramics, including mugs with lips, rings, and concave areas. This solves the long-standing challenge of shape inconsistencies in formed clay products.
Another advancement is jettable primers, which improve adhesion and make prints dishwasher durable—all through a fully inkjet-driven process. Perrelli says these developments completely changed what’s possible in ceramic decoration.
Recent Developments
Reliability in ceramics has always been key to inkjet printing’s success, but printhead development has recently focused on precision jetting of high-viscosity, high-solid content fluids while maintaining compatibility with ceramic glazes. It also copes with the demanding nature of ceramic glazes.
Perrelli points to key printhead developments like high-gap printheads that jet ink farther while maintaining fine droplet control, giving higher print resolution without sacrificing speed; the introduction of full nozzle recirculation—a continuous flow of ink through the printhead—prevents clogging and ensures consistent performance; and support of multi-purpose inks, allowing ceramics to be printed with standard UV formulations rather than requiring specialized inks.
Xaar’s Aquinox printhead supports aqueous fluids, reducing complexity and environmental impact compared to some solvent-based systems. “The development of our printheads alongside Xaar’s technologies and waveforms is now allowing up to 350 g/m² glaze deposition in ceramics, ensuring durability and performance under demanding manufacturing conditions,” shares Walsh.
Cook says this glaze deposition rate “means manufacturers can jet the kind of glaze layers and textures they need for modern ceramic production, while maintaining process robustness and compatibility with challenging fluids.”
FUJIFILM Dimatix printheads celebrate over ten years at the forefront of ceramic tile production. “Our printhead products withstand challenging conditions within the tile production environment, which is typically dusty, hot, and involves the transportation of large clay slabs into printing, glazing, and subsequent high-temperature curing in a kiln,” explains O’Neill.
O’Neill says tile manufacturers demand reliable and dependable machines, which can run sustainably on a continuous basis. The FUJIFILM Dimatix STARFIRE C-Series printheads incorporate an array of technological innovations, which it developed and optimized over the years in cooperation with partners.
FUJIFILM’s REDIJET ink recirculation technology includes down-to-the-nozzle recirculation ensuring its printheads are ready to jet under normal operating conditions. Recirculating high-particle inks through the fluid path ensures the ink is dispersed uniformly as well as keeping nozzle meniscus such that the printhead is in a ready-to-print state, which contributes to overall print system productivity and system uptime.
FUJIFILM’s VersaDrop open waveform architecture allows its OEMs to tune and optimize the jetting profile for each ink to help ensure consistent jetting.
“Mostly recently, we introduced the FUJIFILM Dimatix STARFIRE SG1024 C-Series specifically designed to handle aqueous-based ceramic fluids. These fluids present unique challenges for printheads compared with the more common solvent-based ceramic ink chemistries. ” says O’Neill.
Room for Growth
Even with innovation in direct printing to ceramics, there is room for growth.
“While current printheads have set new benchmarks, there is ongoing potential to enhance temperature resistance, fluid compatibility, and precision for even larger particle sizes and image quality and definition,” suggests Walsh.
Cook believes it is important to respond to new requirements as they appear. “In many respects we feel we’re ahead of where the market is today, but as applications evolve and new fluids are developed, there will always be opportunities to refine and extend printhead capability. So while the foundations are strong, innovation in this area certainly isn’t finished.”
O’Neill also sees room for advancement. “Over the past decade, FUJIFILM Dimatix has expanded the STARFIRE platform to include eight printhead variants to meet the need of our OEMs, and we continue to learn and improve on the solutions we can offer in the future.”
On the ink side, Cook says the main trend is the shift from oil-based systems towards aqueous, water-based formulations. “This supports leaner, more efficient production and aligns well with broader industry drivers.”
Xaar partners like Esmalglass-Itaca Group, Itaca Digital, and Torrecid are developing specialized aqueous inks with high pigment loads and large particles to complement Xaar’s printhead capabilities. “These formulations enable effects like digital relief, metallic finishes, and luster to create the latest tactile and high-quality tile designs consumers ask for,” comments Walsh.
Ink producers have made significant strides in producing new and improved inks and glazes, which are very stable and uniform, with excellent jetting characteristics that are sustainable over long production cycles. “Their latest innovations focused on aqueous-based solutions for decorative inks, glazes, and adhesives are now starting to gain traction in the market,” adds O’Neill.
Perrelli says modern inks are more versatile and regulation ready, adhering to a wider range of substrates while meeting strict safety and environmental standards. “These formulations deliver consistent quality across an array of applications and align with market expectations for safer, more sustainable materials.”
Walsh expects future ink developments to focus on expanding color and effect ranges, improving stability for high solid inks, and optimizing drying and curing performance for faster more environmentally friendly production cycles.
We are at the beginning of a new generation of inkjet fluids for the ceramic industry. “As new growth comes into the sector, we’ll see new technologies, processes, and fluid types being explored. There is still plenty of room for innovation in ink formulations, and we’re excited to see how we can help the industry as those new fluids are developed and brought to market,” states Cook.
“Future innovation will likely focus more on ink chemistry and safety, as these factors now define the next frontier for printhead compatibility, performance, and further applications,” comments Perrelli.
Market demands, evolving regulations, and sustainability goals continue to push ink innovation. “The industry’s next step is balancing performance with eco-responsibility and compliance,” adds Perrelli.
Drying and curing advancements are also critical to growth. “Digital glaze applications reduce the need for traditional drying steps by enabling precise deposition and controlled thickness, which shortens kiln cycles and supports thinner tile production. Saving time, energy, and money,” states Walsh.
Further integration of energy-efficient drying systems and rapid curing technologies will enhance productivity and sustainability. “Moving away from traditional fossil fuel kilns may be realized with electric alternatives considered,” adds Walsh.
Perrelli says UV LED curing is the gold standard for drying. “Prints now come off the press fully cured and ready for packaging—no waiting or post processing required. This shift enables faster turnaround, lower energy use, and consistent results across ceramic surfaces.”
Incremental improvements will continue based on what the market demands, particularly in energy efficiency and curing control. “Future systems will likely use adaptive curing to optimize energy use based on material and print density,” predicts Perrelli.
There is always workflow to consider. “As an example, integration with our partner System Ceramics Spa machinery has streamlined workflows by eliminating physical plates with patterns, as well as enabling fast changeovers and perfect alignment of color and relief effects using the same digital file,” offers Walsh.
Future workflow improvements will focus on greater automation, real-time quality monitoring, and data-driven optimization to maximize efficiency and reduce downtime, notes Walsh.
“Workflow innovation never stops—our focus is helping customers get more output from their machines, faster, smarter, and with more automated integration,” shares Perrelli.
Where Inkjet Shines
The adoption of inkjet for ceramics is strongest in tile manufacturing, particularly in Italy and Spain in Europe and China and Indonesia in Asia. “Here OEMs are integrating Xaar technology into their machine platforms with applications including digital glaze deposition, as well as special effects before and after color decoration printing,” shares Walsh.
Cook points out that Asia and South America are typically lower cost markets where manufacturers are looking for higher efficiency. “By switching to digital print, they can lower their production costs, increase flexibility, and offer more customized designs, which in turn helps them drive additional revenue and stand out in competitive, price-sensitive regions.”
O’Neill also feels that the ceramic tile production industry remains the primary focus for inkjet technology. “While there are niche ceramic applications in areas such as three-dimensional printing and tableware, tile manufacturing is still the key sector. This industry experiences fluctuations due to its close ties to the construction industry, and wider socio-economic factors that drive that sector. Within that broad segment, our OEM partners continue to innovate. For example, they are now delivering solutions for large slab printing and tactile glazes.”
Aside from tiles, there is also a place for inkjet ceramic printing in mugs and promotional gifting. “Technology is evolving at a rapid pace. Just a few years ago, digital rotary printing on mugs wasn’t even possible. That changed with machines like a UV rotary printer capable of printing on handled items. Now, businesses can produce full-wrap, high-quality graphics faster and with far less setup—making digital printing the preferred choice for decorators and manufacturers alike,” offers Perrelli.
Driving Innovation in Ceramics
For providers working with ceramics, productivity, performance, and durability are critical. Recent advancements—from printheads to inks and workflow—support expanded applications. Tile production is a key sector for digital capabilities in ceramics, but there is also movement in mugs and promotional items thanks to technological advancements.
Apr2026, Industrial Print Magazine
