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US 8,770,701 B2Granted
Inkjet printer with enhanced deinkability
AssigneeEastman Kodak Company
InventorsThomas Nathaniel Tombs, Donald Saul Rimai
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
In a system having an inkjet printer and a toner printer, the ink jet printer forms an ink jet image and the toner printer forms a toner image conforming to the inkjet image and transfers the toner image onto the inkjet image. Colorant in the ink is electrostatically attracted to the toner. The toner is fixed. After fixing the colorant attracted to the toner is bound to the toner so that removal of the toner from the receiver also removes any colorant attached to the toner from the receiver.
Claims18
A printer comprising:
- an inkjet printer having a printhead to print an inkjet image on a receiver using ink having a colorant dispersed in hydrophilic liquid carrier fluid with an electrical charge of a first polarity and a solvent with an electrical charge of a second polarity that is the opposite polarity of the first polarity;
- a toner printer having a toner printing module to generate a colorant attracting toner image conforming to the inkjet image using toner particles of the second polarity and to transfer the colorant attracting toner image in registration with an unabsorbed volume of the inkjet image on the receiver so that the difference in polarity between the toner particles and the colorant attracts the colorant to the toner particles;
- a fixing system that applies energy to the toner image to fix the toner image to the receiver;
- a transport system to transport the receiver from the inkjet printer to the toner printer and to the fixing system;
- and
- a control system that causes the inkjet printer to print the ink jet image on the receiver, and the transport system and toner printer to cooperate to cause the toner image conforming to the inkjet image to be transferred to the receiver so that the colorant attracting toner image is introduced into the unabsorbed volume of the inkjet image to attract colorant onto the toner particles, and causes the transport system and the fixing system to cooperate to fix the colorant attracting toner image to the receiver;
- wherein after fixing the colorant attracted to the toner particles are bound to the toner particles so that removal of the toner particles from the receiver also removes any colorant attached to the toner particles from the receiver.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.