I2R E-Paper Is Erasable And Reusable

If you say e-Paper, most of us will think of the e-Readers that have the displays needing little power and offering lots of readability. A new sort of e-paper has surfaced in Taiwan that has some very cool properties. The e-Paper uses a thermal printer like you would find in a fax machine and it prints on the e-Paper using that heat.

The cool part is that the e-Paper can be erased at the flick of a switch and can be reused up to 260 times. The new invention comes from Researchers at the Industrial Technology Research Institute and the developers think that the new e-Paper is a good replacement for paper signs and posters. The key property of the new e-Paper is that it has a plastic film covered with a cholestric liquid crystal.

The compound does not need a backlight to print and can produce different colors. Erasing the paper requires that it be connected to electricity. The researchers are using a modified printer to erase the paper by rolling it backwards. An A4 sized sheet of the e-Paper costs about $60 in Taiwan, which works out to about $2. The developers of the new tech hope to have it on the market in two years.

[via Reuters]