Printer ink (for inkjet desktop printers) has
two main components: water and pigment
(insoluble in water) or dye (soluble in
water). The dye or pigment provide the color.
In addition, there are some other components to
modify the properties of the ink such as
anti-foaming agents or surfactants to help
lower the surface tension (make it easier to form
The reason that printer ink dries so fast does not
have to do with the chemical makeup but rather
with the very small amounts of ink that are
used. If you have ever printed a page that was
solid color, you might have noticed because that
would end up somewhat soggy. If printing text,
however, only a small part of the page will
receive ink. The letters are made up of many small
dots which are droplets of ink. These droplets are
a few to several tens of picoliters small,
depending on the printer and what is being
printed. A liter is a little more than a quart,
and a picoliter is the trillionth part of a liter,
or the millionth part of a millionth part of a
liter. This means that the smallest droplets
have about the diameter of a human red blood cell.
As you may know from your own experience, a small
amount of water spread on a surface dries very
quickly. This is why the ink of the printer dries
quickly, not a chemical trick.
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