Forget Ink Paper Can Now Be Printed With Light

A research team recently developed a new light-printable paper. The effort has been made with a view to reduce the adverse effects of processes involved in production of paper. This new paper can be printed with UV lights and erased easily when paper is printed to a temperature of 120 degrees Centigrade and can be rewritten around 80 more times. The main secret of printing a paper with light relies in the color-altering chemistry of nanoparticles, a very thin coating that can be applied easily over result paper to change it into a light-printable version.

The researchers, involved in this research hail from the University of California, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Shandong University in China. All of these together printed a paper on light-printable rewritable paper. Yandong Yin from the University of California, Riverside, says, “”The greatest significance of our work is the development of a new class of solid-state photo reversible color-switching system to produce an ink-free light-printable rewritable paper that has the same feel and appearance as conventional paper, but can be printed and erased repeatedly without the need for additional ink. Our work is believed to have enormous economic and environmental merits to modern society.”

paper can be printed with light

It is known to all that the process of paper production has very high negative effects over our surrounding environment. It is also involved with the process of deforestation which is one of the biggest causes of increasing pollution. Through this development, the research team aimed to address such problems. The research team recently investigated other options for production of disposable paper. They decided to exploit the color-changing nature of some chemicals that alter color as they are exposed to light. Yin further adds, “We believe the rewritable paper has many practical applications involving temporary information recording and reading, such as newspapers, magazines, posters, notepads, writing easels, product life indicators, oxygen sensors, and rewritable labels for various applications,”