Erasable Paper Coming to a Store Near You!

Below is an interesting article from by Juliet Laetitia

It may sound the stuff of schoolboy spy games, along with invisible ink and newspaper eye holes, but erasable paper is a reality set to come to a workplace near you.

It’s a move that would appease the green lobby, as the ‘paperless office’ idea that has been so widely touted over the last 30 years increasingly looks like a myth. The average US office worker, for example, gets through 10,000 sheets of copier paper in a year.

What has changed, though, says Xerox, is the way we use paper – mostly for display rather than long-term storage. Much office paper is destined for the recycling bin in a startlingly quick turnaround time, at least 20 per cent of it the same day it was printed out.

This idea that has its roots in 1970s research into recycling computer memory housing unused data, and now Xerox Research Center of Canada and the Palo Alto Research Center, California, are joining forces on the project.

Xerox has filed a patent on the system for ‘photosensitive’ paper, which uses a similar technology to that which allows some sunglasses to darken in strong light.

Essentially, supplementary hardware is attached to a standard laser printer, and the system uses no toner. Instead, a blue UV-light emitting diode produces compounds which change colour when they absorb certain amounts of light. The result is a low-resolution document with printed information which disappears within 16 hours.

Increased exposure to light can make the information vanish more quickly, as can popping it back in the copier. After around 50 uses, the paper can be put in the recycling bin in the usual way.

It’s an especially eco-friendly invention since the system only uses 1,000 joules per sheet, or the same amount of energy as running a 60 watt lightbulb for 30 seconds. It can be used in a separate printer, or one combined with conventional printing. The innovation uses purple ink, and the paper is yellow so that it stands out.

Xerox is finalising the system and hopes its dream will be a reality in offices in the next couple of years and already their invention has been shown off at events like WIRED Next Fest, a showcase of global innovations. So far, the firm has also received warm feedback and strong interest in the project.

But, with Sony chasing a similar idea, and Japanese researchers at Ricoh having looked into this in the 1990s, Xerox will need to work hard and work fast before a competitor steals its thunder.

Sources: iht, iht, greentechmedia, computerrepair, istockanalyist. Image credit: kretyen