The dominant digital printing technologies today and for the near future are based either on toner - delivered by electrophotography, magnetography or electron beam imaging - or ink jet processes using liquid or solid inks. All of these technologies have various shortcomings, both technical and cost limitations, leaving room for potential new technologies.But can any new technology emerge and be successfully exploited now, or will we just see incremental development of existing technologies? The industry is littered with novel, innovative yet unexploited techniques that never quite made it. Has the shake-out of mainstream technologies already occurred or is there scope for new ones? Success requires that a new technology be both technically feasible and financially viable and any new technology would need significant advantages over existing ones. Can existing companies with well entrenched and successful technologies adopt new ones, or is it only newcomers and upstarts who can succeed?This paper reviews the shortcomings of existing technologies, considers whether any new printing or marking applications exist, reviews some of the emerging yet still to be exploited technologies - such as ToneJet, TonerJet, AIP, Elcorsy, Direct Imaging, microfluidics and reusable paper, and assesses what the scope might be for these and other currently invisible contenders.
Mike Willis, "Evolving Digital Marking Technologies: Fight for Survival or New Battlegrounds?" in Proc. IS&T Int'l Conf. on Digital Printing Technologies (NIP16), 2000, pp 430 - 433, https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2169-4451.2000.16.1.art00004_2