Inkjet

There was a time not so long ago that my inkjet printer saw a lot of action. Nowadays, however, it can sit idle for weeks or even months before being called into service. But when it is called upon, the long break between print jobs means the print heads are usually clogged and an ink-wasting head clean needs to be performed. Taking inspiration from the human eye, researchers at the University of Missouri (MU) have developed a print nozzle that prevents the ink inside from drying out when not in use.  Read More

Old inkjet printers are an important tool for bioprinting. Recently, researchers from Clemson University discovered that inkjet bioprinting disrupts the membranes of the cells being printed, leaving them open to having proteins inserted ... and opening up new avenues of research in the field.  Read More

Traditional solar cell production techniques are usually time consuming and require expensive vacuum systems or toxic chemicals. Depositing chemical compounds such as CIGS on a substrate using vapor phase deposition also wastes most of the expensive material in the process. For the first time, engineers at Oregon State University (OSU) have now developed a process to create "CIGS" solar cells with inkjet printing technology that allows for precise patterning to reduce raw material waste by 90 percent and significantly lower the cost of producing solar cells with promising, yet expensive compounds.  Read More

Could the end be nigh for plasma and LCD screens? Seiko Epson has recently announced a further development in ink-jet technology, which does away with some of the problems still dogging the much-vaunted organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display technology. In particular, Seiko Epson has signaled it is moving toward a 37-inch HD OLED screen by creating a uniform deposit of organic material while removing the uneven layering of the ink-jet method.  Read More

April 3, 2008 Using FUJIFILM’s cartridge-based Dimatix Materials Printer (DMP), Konarka Technologies has demonstrated the world's-first fabrication of highly efficient solar cells using of inkjet printing technology.  Read More

July 4, 2007 A new mega-sized inkjet printer went on show at SHANGHAI AD & Sign 2007 in China yesterday when NUR Macroprinters showed its advanced NUR Expedio Revolution which prints images up to five meters (16.6ft) wide, enabling it to print billboards in a single pass. Apart from its impressive size, the Expedio Revolution offers unsurpassed printing speed at 300 sq.m (3,200 sq.ft) per hour and can be configured for high quality double-sided printing at 90 sq.m /hr. But wait, there’s more – so that it doesn’t sit idle when there are no billboards to print, it’s capable of multi-roll printing on three rolls simultaneously allowing users to print different files on each roll, reducing costly substrate waste. As there’s effectively no limit to the length of each print, this baby can print an image 5 meters tall and 60 metres long - in an hour. Just the thing for gift wrapping houses.  Read More

June 12, 2005 Brother Industries is demonstrating the world’s fastest inkjet printer at the 2005 World Expo in Aichi, Japan –a prototype designed to demonstrate on-demand printing capabilities. The new technology is a variation on inkjet technology that reorients the printhead with the paper and removes the need for it to move laterally, making the process more efficient , much smaller and blazingly fast – at a journalist demonstration last week the printer produced around 170 pages per minute. Brother sees the technology being used in on-demand printing – as the world goes completely electronic, this type of technology will enable personalised printed newspapers e.g. your hotel might have such a machine hooked to a system that can have your local newspaper from Bogota printed and delivered to your room overnight when you’re at the conference in New Orleans. The paper would be printed according to your interests in a personal profile and combine, for example, the main news and the full local finance, business and sports section but not the womens, real estate, home improvement ad infinitum sections.  Read More