At this so called Inkjet drupa where all sorts of new production level inkjet digital presses are being introduced or previewed, Xerox is sticking with its xerographic technology. At their drupa press conference however Xerox lifted the curtain slightly to preview how it is working with inkjet and to outline what we may expect to see in future. At the press conference Steve Hoover who is VP in charge of the Xerox Reseach Center in Webster NY, outlined some of the developments where Xerox is working with inkjet. He indicated that in the past few years Xerox had filed more than 500 inkjet patents.

In his initial comments it appeared that Hoover was telling us all the reasons why inkjet was not a suitable technology for production printing. These centered around the use of water in the inks and this he stated caused problems with paper as all the water had to be removed from the ink when it hit the paper. This could cause serious problems with the finishing operations for the paper and also it needed great amounts of heat and waste extraction to eliminate the water. He also indicated that aqueous inks had limitations and tended to sink into the paper if there were not special agents to prevent this.

He indicated that Xerox was working on alternative approaches for inkjet that would make the technology more suitable for a wide variety of applications. The first of these was the existing solid ink technology as used in many of the Xerox Phaser printer products. Solid ink is supplied like wax crayons and it is melted in the print head to become a liquid that can be jetted from the long-life stainless steel print heads. The liquid changes back to a solid on hitting the paper. The image quality however is not offset like but does give vibrant color on a range of low cost substrates. Xerox is working on technology to speed up the operation of this technology and Hoover showed a video of a prototype web press running at high speed. The impression given was that this technology could perhaps enter the market within a two year period. He also indicated that Xerox was already linking its print heads to build page wide arrays.

Hoover then described a newer technology Xerox was working on and he referred to this as Gel inks. This is a similar approach where the gel changes to a liquid for jetting and solidifies on hitting the substrate where it is heated and cured. It can work with a wide range of substrates including plastics, foils and other packaging materials. The image produced is very offset like and of potential high quality. So far Xerox has not built a press to test this out and research is still at bench level. This technology however appears to have great promise in terms of quality, speed and the range of substrates that can be imaged.

My assessment of this presentation was that Xerox is getting ready to make a major move in the new few years into the inkjet space but obviously maintaining and extending its position in the xerographic space. I think for Xerox drupa 2012 will be their inkjet drupa.

Andy Tribute
Attributes Associates