Gel pen

Gel Pen

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Gel pen

A gel pen uses ink in which pigment

Pigment

A pigment is a material that changes the color of light it Reflection as the result of selective color absorption. This physical process differs from fluorescence, phosphorescence, and other forms of luminescence, in which the material itself emits light....
is suspended

Suspension (chemistry)

In chemistry, a suspension is a heterogeneous fluid containing solid particles that are sufficiently large for sedimentation. Usually they must be larger than 1 micrometre....
in a water

Water

Water is a common chemical substance that is essential for the survival of all known forms of life. In typical usage, water refers only to its liquid form or States of matter, but the substance also has a solid state, ice, and a gaseous state, water vapor or steam....
-based gel

Gel

A gel is a solid, gelatin material that can have properties ranging from soft and weak to hard and tough. Gels are defined as a substantially dilute crosslinked system, which exhibits no flow when in the steady-state....
. Because the ink is thick and opaque

Opacity (optics)

Opacity is the measure of impenetrability to electromagnetic radiation or other kinds of radiation, especially visible light. In radiative transfer, it describes the absorption and scattering of radiation in a medium, such as a plasma, dielectric, radiation shield, glass, etc....
, it shows up more clearly on dark or slick surfaces than the typical inks used in ballpoint

Ballpoint pen

A ballpoint pen , is a modern writing instrument. A ballpoint pen has an internal chamber filled with a viscosity ink that is dispensed at the tip during use by the rolling action of a small metal sphere of brass, steel or tungsten carbide....
or felt tip

Marker pen

A marker pen, marking pen, felt-tip pen, or marker, is a pen which has its own ink-source, and usually a tip made of a porous material, such as felt or nylon....
pens. They can be used for many types of writing and illustration.

The general design of a gel pen is similar to that of a regular rollerball pen

Rollerball pen

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Encyclopedia

A gel pen uses ink in which pigment

Pigment

Suspension (chemistry)

In chemistry, a suspension is a heterogeneous fluid containing solid particles that are sufficiently large for sedimentation. Usually they must be larger than 1 micrometre....
in a water

Water

Gel

Opacity (optics)

Ballpoint pen

Marker pen

Rollerball pen

Rollerball pens are writing instruments which use ball point writing mechanisms with water-based liquid or gelled ink, as opposed to the oil-based viscous inks found in ballpoint pens....
, with a barrel containing the writing mechanism and a cap, and a reservoir filled with ink. The barrels can be created in many different sizes and designs; some have finger grips of rubber or plastic. The size of the nib

Nib (pen)

A nib is the part of a quill, dip pen or fountain pen which comes in to contact with the writing surface in order to deposit ink. There are different types of nib designed for different purposes that vary in terms of the material they are made from, their purpose, shape and size....
or pen tip ranges from 0.25 mm to 1.5 mm.

Inks

The main advantage of gel ink is its high viscosity

Viscosity

Viscosity is a measure of the Drag of a fluid which is being deformed by either shear stress or extensional stress. In everyday terms , viscosity is "thickness"....
or thickness, which supports a higher proportion of pigments in the medium. The pigments are typically copper

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29.It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity....
phthalocyanine

Phthalocyanine

A phthalocyanine is a macrocycle having an alternating nitrogen atom-carbon atom ring structure .The molecule is able to coordinate hydrogen and metal cations in its center by coordinate bonds with the four isoindole nitrogen atoms....
and iron oxide

Iron oxide

Iron oxides are chemical compounds composed of iron and oxygen. Altogether, there are sixteen known iron oxides and oxyhydroxides....
s, and the gel is made up of water and biopolymer

Biopolymer

Biopolymers are a class of polymers produced by living organisms.Starch, proteins and peptides,and DNA and RNA are all examples of biopolymers, in which the monomeric units, respectively, are sugars, amino acids, and nucleotides....
s, such as xanthan gum

Xanthan gum

Xanthan gum is a polysaccharide used as a food additive and rheology modifier . It is produced by a process involving fermentation of glucose or sucrose by the Xanthomonas campestris bacterium....
and tragacanth gum, as well as some types of polyacrylate thickeners. The pigments are opaque

Opacity (optics)

Opacity is the measure of impenetrability to electromagnetic radiation or other kinds of radiation, especially visible light. In radiative transfer, it describes the absorption and scattering of radiation in a medium, such as a plasma, dielectric, radiation shield, glass, etc....
, and gel pens are available in a rainbow of bright and pastel colours, as well as opalescent

Opalescence

Opalescence is a type of dichroism seen in highly colloid with little Opacity . The material appears yellowish-red in transmitted light and blue in the scattered light perpendicular to the transmitted light....
, metallic, and glitter

Glitter

Glitter is the word used to describe an assortment of very small pieces of paper, glass or plastic painted in metallic, neon and iridescent colors to reflect light in a sparkling spectrum....
y colours which show up clearly on dark paper.

Ballpoint pen

Dye

A dye can generally be described as a colored substance that has an Chemical affinity to the Wiktionary:substrate to which it is being applied....
solute in an alcohol

Alcohol

In chemistry, an alcohol is any organic compound in which a hydroxyl Functional group is bound to a carbon atom of an alkyl or substituted alkyl group....
solvent

Solvent

A solvent is a liquid or gas that dissolves a solid, liquid, or gaseous solute, resulting in a solution.The most common solvent in everyday life is water....
. Compared to ballpoint pens, gel pens:

Create a bolder line
Smudge less
Have occasional skips, due to the ball being less evenly coated with ink
Use more ink, leading to more frequent refills or replacements

Fountain pen

A fountain pen is a pen that contains a reservoir of water-based liquid Fountain pen inks. If it uses ink cartridges instead of having a built-in ink reservoir, it is often called cartridge pen....
s and liquid-ink rollerball pen

Rollerball pen

Solvent

A solvent is a liquid or gas that dissolves a solid, liquid, or gaseous solute, resulting in a solution.The most common solvent in everyday life is water....
. Compared to these pens, gel pens:

Are less prone to bleed through to the other side of a piece of paper
Create finer, more controlled lines with fewer blots
Can create white or brightly coloured opaque lines on dark surfaces

Paint marker

A paint marker is a type of marker pen that is used to create permanent writing on a variety of surfaces from paper to metal to Rock .Ink...
s use an oil-based paint/ink that is very opaque and overlays all other colours beneath it. Compared to paint markers, gel pens:

Are much smaller, with finer tips
Have no odour and do not require shaking to mix pigment with solvent

India ink

India ink , or less commonly called Chinese ink since it may have been first developed in either India or China, is a simple black ink once widely used for writing and printing, and now more commonly used for drawing, especially when inking comics and comic strips....
(based on carbon black

Soot

Soot is a general term that refers to impure carbon particles resulting from the incomplete combustion of a hydrocarbon. It is more properly restricted to the product of the gas-phase combustion process but is commonly extended to include the residual pyrolyzed fuel particles such as cenospheres, charred wood, petroleum coke, etc....
pigment) is perhaps the ink closest to gel ink in opacity, although it is usually made with an alcohol and shellac

Shellac

Shellac is a resin secreted by the female Laccifer lacca to form a cocoon, on trees in the forests of India and Thailand.. It is processed and sold as dry flakes , which are dissolved in denatured alcohol to make liquid shellac, which is used as a brush-on colorant, food glaze and wood finish much like a combination of stain and polyuretha...
-based binder.

Another trait of gel ink is that it resists common laboratory analysis

Forensic chemistry

Forensic chemistry is the Applied science of chemistry to law enforcement or the failure of products or processes. Many different analytical methods may be used to reveal what chemical changes occurred during an incident, and so help reconstruct the sequence of events....
. The United States Secret Service

United States Secret Service

The United States Secret Service is a United States Federal government of the United States law enforcement agency that falls under the United States Department of Homeland Security....
has maintained the International Ink Library for many decades. Because manufacturers change their ink formulas slightly from year to year, thin-layer chromatography (TLC) can be used on ink from traditional pens to trace the manufacturer and date of manufacture of most inks. The pigments in gel ink do not dissolve, and therefore cannot be analyzed with TLC.

Gel pen

Inks

See also