Nowadays, large offset presses, costing several million dollars apiece, dominate printing business that is estimated for $418 billion a year. Most of the offset presses sold in the world are produced by Xerox.

This state of affairs is likely to change with the introduction of the new inkjet technologies. And the success of new technologies means troubles for Xerox and more business for major makers of inkjet printers like Hewlett-Packard, Eastman Kodak and others.

The introduced inkjet presses, priced as much as $2.5 million per unit, are more expensive than the half a million dollar Xerox machines, but cost less per page. For instance, inkjet machines produce a page for 1 cent, versus about 4 cents for the Xerox’s laser technology. Just like with desktop printers, the digital printer makers expect to make their profits by selling ink.

So far offset printers produces 95% of all printed pages worldwide. Digital presses account for only 2% of offset pages, or $US8 billion annually. However, inkjet makers expect that share to triple in the next 3-4 years as quality and speed of digital printing improve. But even today inkjet makers are sure with their technology digital printing is competitive in price and quality with offset printing.

At the Drupa trade show world’s printer makers are showing new inkjet presses predicted to be the future of commercial printing.

Kodak will demonstrate its Stream inkjet technology that can print at a speed of 150 meters a minute, about half the speed of traditional offset. The technology will be available in 2010, Kodak says.

HP will show its Inkjet Color Web Press, which prints at 120 meters a minute and will be available for sale next year.

Industry specialists are cautious in theirs predictions and say digital printing won’t push out offset as fast as digital photography replaced film. But the shift to digital printing provides an important growth opportunity for printer makers.

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The Xerox’s research lab demonstrated reusable paper. No, no, not recyclable which is any paper, but reusable. Information printed on it disappears in 24 hours. The developers claim a sheet of such paper can be use up to 100 times without compromising quality, of print presumably.

From the outside, the paper looks like an A4 sheet. From the inside, however, it is made of thousands of UV-sensitive molecules that interact with UV radiation of printer and change their properties. A day later, the molecules exposed to the radiation change back to initial properties. So, no toner is needed.

Currently, this technology only works for black-and-white printing. The very printers are so compact that they can be mobile.

Xerox first announced the reusable papers late in 2006. At that time, the paper was said to keep printed info 16 to 24 hours and be reused up to 50 times.

A question remains whether the new paper would be durable enough, since I can’t think of how gentle one should handle a printed sheet so that it lasts 100 reuses.

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Hello! Today we have some hi-tech news again, the “we found another use for inkjet printer” kind of news.

So, there is a company, FUJIFILM Dimatix, that supplies drop-on-demand inkjet printheads for industrial applications. The company recently announced that researchers at the Department of Chemistry at Colorado State University used its cartridge-based Dimatix Materials Printer (DMP) to devise a method of developing new materials for producing hydrogen from water and sunlight.

The researchers used a Materials Printer to do the necessary calculations and precisely print arrays of finely-graded compounds onto special transparent substrates.

The new method allowed the researchers to isolate a particular chemical compound that has potential for water photoelectrolysis. Water photoelectrolysis is a conversion of sunlight into an electrical current that divides water into hydrogen and oxygen. This process is critical for energy-efficient hydrogen production.

The printer uses the Dimatix Materials Cartridge that has 16 nozzles linearly spaced at 254 microns with typical drop sizes of 1 and 10 picoliters. These cartridges allowed the researchers to accurately determine individual droplet volumes of the compound gradients, the number of nozzles firing, the jetting waveform for individual nozzles and the frequency of nozzle firing. Such level of customization makes it a great printer, indeed.

The compound optimized during the research is made of three common elements – aluminum, cobalt and iron. The researchers hope that the method can be used to find new solar water splitting materials that are both functional and inexpensive.

As oil prices go up, discovery of new materials for the production of alternative fuels is very appealing.

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Here is another device from the family of “The World’s Mosts and Firsts”. This is a wide-format Solara ion inkjet printer by Gerber.

The printer can print on virtually any surface that is up 64 inches wide and up to 1 inch thick! When it comes to printing speed, the device covers up to 639 square feet per hour at a resolution of up to 1440 dpi on rigid and rollable media. Gerber Solara ion printer makes printouts that can last up to 3 years outdoors without lamination.

So, what actually make this printer world’s first? Of course, it’s the technologies behind it.

Solara ion printer is the first to use GerberCAT cationic inks that dry instantly and are ready to use right after printing. Besides, these inks feature unmatched adhesion on materials problematic for other ink jet printers such as textiles or even glass.

Next is Cold Fire Cure technology that allows printing on wider range of heat sensitive media such as plastic, vinyl, fabric, and paper based materials. Needless to say, the technology produces no volatile organic compounds, no odors, and no environmental ozone.

As you can see, this is no ordinary device you would buy home. Gerber says that the device is targeted at printing applications such as billboards, fleet graphics or vehicle wraps.

Up to date, there is no any exact information on the price of this printer. Gerber, however, mentioned that the Solara ion offers better performance than any other such printer on the market today for under $150,000.

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You may be pleased to know that Kyocera announced a development of the world fastest and industry widest drop-on-demand inkjet printhead.

The KJ4 Series printhead that was developed in cooperation with Brother is claimed to print at speeds of

• up to 200 m per minute at a resolution of 600×480 dpi
• up to 150 m per minute at 600×600 dpi.

They didn’t specify the width of a print produced at such speed, but it seems to be the width of the printhead ifself, that is 10 cm.

The printhead comprises a Kyocera-developed piezo actuator that accommodates 2,656 ink nozzles in a 108 mm-wide arrangement. The device dimensions are 200×25x58 mm.

The printhead is versatile and can use both water-based pigment and UV inks, delivering them in 4 to 20 picolitres droplets onto variety of media – from paper to fabric, film and plastic.

In performance test, two printheads used in Miyakoshi Printing Machinery MJP600 printers were able to achieved outputs of 1,000 A4 sheets per hour.

Commercial sales of the KJ4 Series printhead will start in April 2008, which means we’re going to see devices printing at light speed some 3-4 month later.

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At an event on March 10, 2008 in Tel Aviv, Hewlett-Packard offered a peek into future printing technologies, introducing a new inkjet printer that prints thousands of pages per minute and ink that retains its shine even when exposed to extreme elements.

HP’s water-based Latex Ink is specially formulated to embed in a surface and become part of a media print, said Stephen Nigro, senior vice president of HP’s graphics and imaging business. HP’s Latex Ink can withstand snow and rain and is useful for large-format media used on billboards and outdoor signs.

The company also launched the Inkjet Web Press printer, which can print up to 2,600 A4-sized color pages a minute at a cost of under US$0.01 per color page, Nigro said.

The Latex Ink includes a specially created formula, called latex polymer, that provides the print surface its durability and color, according to HP. Water-based ink ejected carries the latex polymer and pigment particles to the surface. The inks are 70 percent water and 30 percent of additives and other inks, HP said. The ink was developed by HP and HP Labs.

Unlaminated outdoor displays using the ink can last up to three years, while unlaminated in-window displays can last up to five years.

The printer cartridge uses recyclable material and the company has developed new recyclable substrates for the ink to make printing environmentally friendly, HP said. Other printing technology for large-format media include UV (ultraviolet) curable ink, which interacts with an ultraviolet light source to create a print.

HP also showed the Inkjet Web Press, a printer that prints up to 2,600 A4-sized color pages a minute. The printer will be able to print on pages up to 30 inches (76.2 centimeters) wide, Nigro said. It is targeted at replacing the printed pages coming from traditional offset presses.

A printing job with a traditional offset press takes hours and it’s not possible to print on demand. With a traditional offset press, a machine first creates a physical plate with the image etched on it, which is then sent to print. With the Inkjet Web Press platform, hitting the print button sends the image directly to a printer, making high-volume printing more productive by eliminating analog elements like a plate, Nigro said.

The printer is built around the Scalable Printing Technology (SPT) platform, which improves the quality of prints by spraying more ink on pages using thousands of nozzles on a single printhead. SPT is already in use on printers like HP’s Photosmart, Nigro said. HP introduced the Photosmart Minilab ml1000 inkjet printer earlier this year, which can print 4-by-6-inch photos as fast as 1,500 prints per hour.

Via www.cio.com

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One day you will get anything you want without going to local supermarket. The only thing you’d have to buy will be an inkjet printer. Using it, you will not just print images and text, but also get yourself other stuff for very day life.

The scientists have adopted the inkjet printer for printing electric circuits, artificial bones, blood vessels and body organs. Yet, inkjet printing proves versatile technology for creating other non-imaging products.

A Massachusetts, US-based company Konarka Technologies has announced that it has successfully manufactured solar cells using inkjet printing technology. Using the existing and very simple technologies of an office inkjet printer, Konarka has replaced ink with the solar cell material, and paper with a thin flexible sheet of plastic.

Here is how it works. The printhead of an inkjet printer deposits a solar cell material into a thin flexible plastic sheet. According to the company, the process creates solar cells which are almost as good as the silicon ones, created with more advanced technologies. The beauty of the new method is that it makes solar panel much cheaper, as it uses existing, generally accepted technology and requires no special clean premises.

Multiple colors can be added to “ink” to print patterns onto the cells, customizing them for different environments. Konarka says the technology may ultimately produce solar cells to generate energy from both sunlight and indoor light, and to supply lower power devices, like indoor or sensor applications.

The flexibility of the solar cells allows for a variety of locations where traditional solar panels could not be installed. Moreover, Rick Hess, president and CEO of Konarka, said in an interview to PopularMechanics.com that they “constantly receive calls from innovators who have read about the cells and propose unique—sometimes wild and crazy—concepts for the technology.”

For the moment, the inkjet printing is only feasible for large productions of solar cells. First consumer products are not likely to appear within next two years.

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