Polymerised (or Chemical) Toner
Advances in Colour Toner
Major manufacturers of colour laser printers have moved away from the traditional crushed toner over the past few years, to a chemically manufactured or polymerised type of toner.
Using the traditional method, the toner is ground in successive processes to smaller and smaller particles, and over a period of time the particle size achieved has become smaller and smaller - down to about 7 microns which is the real limit of the technology
As particle sizes have become smaller the printers output has become better and better and indeed is satisfactory for most users. However in an effort to improve image quality, running costs and the environmental impact of toner all of the toner manufacturers have been investing hugely in Chemical or Polymerised toner.
Basically the polymerisation method involves synthesising resin particles about a hundred nanometres (about one billionth of a meter) in diameter which are then chemically coagulated and fused with colour pigment additives in precise ratios that control their size and shape.
This creates extremely small spherical toner particles of a uniform size (around 3 micron in diameter) and shape.
The Polymerisation Process
Since polymerised toner needs no oil for fusing, it produces natural-looking low-gloss colour images and documents that can be written on as well as allow notes to be attached to, and are therefore suitable for business use. Moreover, smaller toner particles have a better transfer rate to paper, which thus reduces the amount of toner used in image reproductions. The true benefits of polymerised toners are the uniformity of shape and size which allows a printed output that is very close to the quality of offset printing.
Here is anexample of how the toner sits on the page, you can clearly see the difference between the two different kinds of toner. You can see from the diagram that the polymerised toner is obviously much more uniform in shape and size giving a much smoother finish.
There are also substantial environmental benefits to manufacturing Polymerised toner compared to traditional methods.
It requires about 1/3 less energy in its manufacturing process and produces substantially less Co2,NOx and SOx emissions all of which contribute to Global warming and Acid Rain.
Other benefits are
- Less toner on paper
- Increased yields
- Increased developer lifetimes
- Less toner scatter
- High image resolution
- High transparency
- Matt or gloss, no differential gloss
