Epson: Aqueous Versus Solvent Inks

Here's an article from Epson that
mentions aqueous inks:

Aqueous-Based Ink Breakthrough

Here's another article that mentions
solvent ink versus aqueous ink:

Solvent Ink Versus Aqueous Ink

This is something I need to learn
more about. I'm pretty sure that
the inks in my Epson Stylus Photo
R200 are aqueous inks. Here's the
2 reasons I think so:

1. The inks run profusely when you
   spill a drop of water on paper. In
   other words, the ink is very very
   water soluble.
2. There's no obnoxious smell to the
   ink, something I would expect with a
   solvent of almost any kind other than
   water.

I'm not an expert on this. In fact,
I'm just now learning about it this
morning. I'll try to learn more.

The basic difference seems to be that
solvent inks are carried by either
alcohol or oil whereas the carrier
for an aqueous ink is water.

In other words, all inks have a solvent.
Aqueous inks use water as the solvent
and solvent inks use something else
as the solvent.

Water is sometimes called the
universal solvent. Because
water dissolves so many things, it
is sometimes not thought of as a
solvent at all --- a paradox, it
seems.

I'll try to learn more later.

Ed Abbott