A team of Chinese materials scientists have developed paper that can be used over a hundred times to record or print information. Reported by the ACS Publications portal.
A recording or drawing made on such paper remains clear for several months, which is much longer than that of previously created counterparts.
Living in the digital age, humanity still needs traditional printed materials. But, for the most part, they are used only once, which causes significant harm to the environment.
As one of the creators of the material, Luzhuo Chen, notes, scientists from different countries have been developing rewritable paper for more than a dozen years, but their technologies have many drawbacks, and the main ones are expensive production and a difficult way to preserve recorded information.
All these limitations were overcome after the invention of a simple method for creating rewritable paper, from which records are erased with a slight change in temperature. The paper is heated for writing, and cooled for erasing. An electrothermal pen, infrared light source, or thermal printer is used to heat the paper. For the recording to disappear, the paper must be cooled to -10 ° C. This material can be recorded over a hundred times.
According to scientists, the production of such paper does not require large costs, therefore, a relatively simple technology has promising opportunities in practical application.