Xerox has revealed the extent of its exploits in inkjet R&D while challenging pretty current orthodox of inkjet technology.
The vice president of the Xerox Research Centre, Webster, Steve Hoover described what he called the inkjet paradox, that is when jetting the ink the need for fine nozzles means you need a very thin watery fluid, that would get clogged by the thick "toothpaste like" inks used in offset and flexo print today but watery inks cause all sorts of problems with degraded image quality and drying when they hit the substrate.
Webster claims Xerox has the answer, in fact it has had it for 20 years - solid inks as used in its office products. It's a simple way to solve the viscosity problem - when hot the inks are melted and thin, so if you keep them and the print head hot they meet the requirements for jetting, but once they leave the warm confines of the print head they rapidly cool to the preferred gloopiness needed to stick where they're sprayed on the substrate.
Hoover says that for commercial and industrial applications Xerox has gone a step further and developed what it terms a gel ink. The stuff it has in the lab is also UV cured to make it extra tough.
It's a compelling concept not just for commercial print but also for packaging which has a need for that robustness. And co-incidentally is also what Xerox chief executive Anne Mulcahy has identified as the next big opportunity for the firm. A focus on packaging would explain why the firm was keen to highlight its success in the lab of printing onto a wide range of substrates beyond paper including plastic and metal films.
The firm has a 508mm (20") four-colour 133m per minute machine as a test bed for the technology, but won't be drawn on a timeframe for when it will be launched. Given it says the fundamental R&D and patent work is done and it's happy to play its hand it shouldn't be too long. Xerox has made much of the fact that rivals are unveiling products that won't see the light for a year or two, it could be that it is making cash from its concept at about the same time other suppliers get around to shipping what are already being pushed as products.
In the meantime Mulcahy also dropped heavy hints that solid ink will carry on its march up the productivity and performance path and could see the light of day in the production space soon. Having cast aspersions on whether this Drupa should really be defined as the inkjet show it's clear that it won't be too long until Xerox is also supplying inkjet kit, however unlike some other firms it is being more guarded about its applications. It has stated that inkjet has its place in print but that it falls short of being a panacea.