Recently, research on innovative approach that enables sustainable printing for the well-being of the environment has garnered a lot of attention and development, including non-impact printing industry. Energy conservation and sustainable printing have prompted the industry to explore new technologies or materials for the printing devices and its consumables. This paper will focus on the bio-based toner resin which derived from palm oil-based derivative and the preparation of bio-based toner for electrophotographic printing. Two different alkyd polyester macromers derived from palm oil were used to co-polymerize with petroleum-based monomers to produce the hybrid bio-resins, with bio-based content up to 21% or more. Bio-toners were formulated using these resins followed by evaluation of the printing results from a laser printer. The properties analysis of the bio-resins showed promising and desirable results in comparison to the commercially available, petroleum-based toner resin. The printing quality and performance of the bio-toners did achieve the overall targeted specifications. The outcome of this study has proven that this unique proprietary technology was feasible for toner resin making, in terms of processes, cost advantage, the significance of bio-content incorporated and the printing performance of the biotoner.
Jaan Soon Tan, Jun Shen Chia, Choon Liew, Seng Neon Gan, "Palm Oil-Based Bio-Resin for Toner" in Proc. IS&T Int'l Conf. on Digital Printing Technologies and Digital Fabrication (NIP28), 2012, pp 194 - 197, https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2169-4451.2012.28.1.art00057_1