The "invisible printer ink" by Toshiba

Eco MFP Studio 306LP can "erase" specially designed toner to enable reuse of paper.

Techradar reports that the printer from Toshiba is able to "scrub clean" pages that have been printed using Pilot’s FriXion ink already used in the stationery company’s erasable pens, changing the blue toner into white so that paper looks almost new.

Noting that "80% of everything printed is discarded within half an hour", Toshiba applied the FriXion blue ink to a laser printer so that users can save money whilst also helping the environment by reusing resources.

Able to print on both sides of a page on any printer paper, the printer comes with a separate RD30 erasing unit which uses heat and pressure to erase the toner on a printed page, turning it white so that what was printed becomes almost invisible, although the article states that "if you squint, you can see the shapes of some of the letters under a bright light".

Toshiba says that paper can be reused "five or six times", with one employee claiming that he was able to reuse some pages up to fifteen times.

In addition, pages are scanned by the printer before they are erased so that users are able to recover a copy from the hard drive should they find that they need it again; and scans the page again once text has been erased to check for any marks that have been missed, with pages that are deemed too messy being diverted to a different paper bin to prevent it from being used again by mistake.

While Toshiba has only used the technology on large business printers, it hopes that if the idea takes off it could become "an option for home printing as a separate toner cartridge".

Source: Toshiba introduces "invisible ink" printer