A Dutch start up company has developed an ‘inkless printing’ technology that it believes has applications from office printing to book printing and to marking and coding.
The Tocano team from the Delft Technology University, issuing a laser to carbonise the top micro layer of a sheet of paper with the same resolution as a standard electrophotographic laser printing. Spot size of the inkless technology will be 24 microns. It is now hoping to start talks with commercial developers and producers of digital printing systems.
The development began as a graduation project by Venkatesh Chandraseker who teamed up with fellow student Arnaud van der Veen. “Inkless has now met the quality standards of conventional printing techniques, among other things on the resolution and printing speed,” says van der Veen. “With inkless printing we can completely turn the print market upside down.”
Lasers have been used to burn date and product codes in labels and packaging for some years, but these technologies remove material to create the permanent marking. DataLase has taken this to the next stage in using lasers to write on a responsive coating launching this to huge interest at Drupa.
The inkless system promise the same advantages without the need to apply a coating. Van der Veen continues: “Our inkless printing technology is unique. Worldwide, no other party has succeeded in printing on regular paper without the use of cartridges, toners or other supplies. With inkless the paper is carbonised. If you would normally try this with thin material such as paper, you would burn through it quickly.
“The resulting print would also not be permanent in that case and would not be black enough. Inkless has a much better control over the carbonisation process, which means that we don’t have to print as deeply and we do not damage the paper. Furthermore we have developed a solution which ensure that the print is black enough and also permanent.”
The company is in early stage talks with printing companies and developers with the aim of bringing the technology to market as quickly as possible. Questions will need to be answered regarded to its robustness, versatility for different types of paper and working parameters for the laser imaging system.
Part of the argument is directed at eliminating the need for cartridges of toner, many of which end up in landfill rather than being recycled. The materials and energy needed for their production and transportation to end users would also be eliminated by universal take up of this system. It remains mono only so colour printing would continue to need toners.
A Dutch start up is planning to exploit technology developed at TUDelft which carbonises the thinnest layer of a sheet of paper to produce an irreversible black image at high quality, calling this system inkless printing.
