In line with recent energy-saving trends, Fuji Xerox has been actively pursing technological innovations that increase the energy efficiency of widespread office multifunction devices and printers.
Toner fusion is the most power-intensive process in those devices??accounting for 50 to 80 percent of total power consumed??as instant high-temperature fusion requires a massive amount of energy.
Fuji Xerox has now developed EA-Eco toner, a special toner that enables a lower fusing temperature??by more than 20°C compared with conventional EA toner. Changes in the viscosity of EA-Eco toner relative to temperature are shown in Fig. 1. With its viscosity sharply changing with temperature, EA-Eco toner achieves its minimum fusing temperature at 20 to 50°C lower than conventional toner.
Fig.1: Viscosity Changes of EA-Eco Toner with Temperature
EA-Eco toner is enabled by arranging slow-melting polyester and sharp-melting polyester which would normally have handling problems in charging and production, into the optimum toner structure using the unique emulsion aggregation technology shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2: EA-Eco Toner Structure
In addition, EA-Eco toner is completely oil-free, with wax contained as with conventional EA toner, allowing for a glossy finish that follows glossy paper with the sharp-melting characteristics as shown in Fig. 1. As a result, it attains an appropriate gloss even on different paper types, such as less gloss on plain paper and higher gloss on glossy paper. With EA-Eco toner, which enables both lower fusing temperature and high-gloss printing, power consumption can be reduced by approximately 40% in glossy mode compared with conventional Fuji Xerox EA toner, leading to a large reduction in the amount of carbon dioxide emissions.
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