Cambridge researchers develop 'unprinter'

Tech World writes.

Cambridge's Low Carbon Materials Processing Group leader, Julian Allwood, said the discovery could allow paper to be reused rather than recycled, reducing emissions by 20%.

According to The Register, the idea of reusing printed paper has been around for a while, and it is not too difficult, provided you use expensive coated paper.

Toshiba has recently been showing off a printer that can erase its own single colour toner off normal paper, but the technique has limitations. With Toshiba's system, the ink is heated to make it disappear, but the technique leaves a residue and the same paper can only be reused five times.

The team, consisting of David Leal-Ayala and his colleagues, improvised it further by using laser pulses, which vaporise toner particles in thin layers until they were no more, CBR reports.

Leal-Ayala told scientific journal New Scientist that the key idea was to find a laser energy level that is high enough to ablate, or vaporise, the toner that at the same time is lower than the destruction threshold of the paper substrate.