Title: 
Xerox - Its Journey with Ink

Word Count:
656

Summary:
Chester Carlson inventor of xerography founded the Haloid Company on April 18, 1935. The company manufactured and sold photographic paper! It was based in Rochester New York.

In the year 1942 Carlson received U.S. patent No. 2,297,691 on Oct. 6 for electrophotography, later called xerography, the technology that revolutionized the world of imaging.


Keywords:
Xerox, toner particle size, photographic paper, printers, office, ink cartridges, environmentally friendly,  high-speed 64-bit bus


Article Body:
Chester Carlson inventor of xerography founded the Haloid Company on April 18, 1935. The company manufactured and sold photographic paper! It was based in Rochester New York.

In the year 1942 Carlson received U.S. patent No. 2,297,691 on Oct. 6 for electrophotography, later called xerography, the technology that revolutionized the world of imaging.

Xerox as it is known today was trademarked in 1948 when Haloid and Battelle Development Corp. announced the development of xerography.

The first ever copier- Model A or Ox Box, based on xerography was given to the world by Xerox in the year 1949! Today it manufactures printers for office and home use as well as high volume printers, wide format printers and digital printing presses and afcoarse all the supplies that go with these equipments! They also provide services such as document management, assessment and asset management services among a number of other services!

Xerox pioneered work on the carbon-based organic toner during the 1950’s and today it boasts of developing a chemically grown toner – Emulsion Aggregation, in short Xerox has been and still is the market leader in copiers, toners and Inks!

It is No.1 in digital production color and No. 2 in office color. Xerox also manufactures compatible cartridges and claims to be a high quality alternative to Hewlett-Packard cartridges!
Xerox manufactures and markets a range of   monochrome and colored copiers, fax machines, printers and presses.

Technology:

Xerox Research Center Canada conducts fundamental and applied materials research in toners, inks, photoreceptors and specialty substrates to support xerographic and direct printing technologies.
 
Solid Ink 

Solid ink remains in solid form until heated to a very specific temperature so that it turns to liquid, then instantly turns back to solid when printed. A precise stainless steel print head with tiny holes smaller than a human hair applies the solid ink to the printing media. The print head houses 1,236 nozzles jetting more than 30 million drops per second. The print head jets the ink to a heated drum where it remains in a malleable state that ensures precise transfer to the paper. 
This reduces the amount of ink that is absorbed into the paper fibers and controls dot spread. 

The brain behind such precise control is the Phaser controller, which is based on a 600 MHz processor and a high-speed 64-bit bus. 

A solid ink printer consists of only three major components- the print head that applies ink to print drum, the print drum that transfers image to paper and the controller, which is the brain of the printer that converts data from the computer to information required to print the image on paper. Add a cabinet and a paper tray and you have a solid ink printer.

With print speeds up to 30 pages per minute, and first-page-out within six seconds, the solid ink printer can be three times faster than a comparably priced laser printer.
Advantages of solid ink printers is they give outstanding print quality, 90% less waste as compared to other competitive printers in the market, prints up to 16 pages on a single sheet saving paper and it is Energy Star compliant.

Emulsion Aggregation Toner 

It is the breakthrough technology developed by Xerox Research Center Canada and patented by Xerox. This technology uses a chemical process to grow toner particles with well-defined shapes.

Extremely tiny particles of the components that make up toner are placed together in a water-based environment and allowed to bond, and then grow. This simplifies the control of the size and shape of toner particles. Once the particles reach their target size, they are removed from the growth environment. This growth process of completely organic matter requires fewer steps and consumes less energy, making it much more environmentally friendly. 

One major advantage is that cost is not a limiting factor in manufacturing EA toner owing to the fact that there is no exponential relation between cost and toner particle size! Moreover, this in turn is due to very less energy consumption during the particle growth phase.


