Contemporary printing technology is faster and more affordable than ever before, with inkjet printing and laser printing being the two most common ones. Ink is used in inkjet printers and is a liquid tinted with dyes or pigments. Toner, however, is a fine powder that’s used in laser printers. Is there a dry toner or liquid toner? What is a dry toner copier or liquid toner copier indeed? What is the key difference between dry toner and liquid toner powder? In this article, we’ll explore and answer these questions in a simple easy-to-understand way.
Laser toner is a powdery or liquid substance that is used in toner cartridges which in turn is used in digital electrophotograpic printers such as laser printers, copiers and digital presses, and can print either on coated or uncoated papers.
Dry Toner
Dry toner is mainly composed of heat-sensitive plastic powder, usually a combination of acrylic and styrene. It consists of pigments embedded inside polymer beads so that different colors can be generated by the toner. Dry toners are usually used in many desktop, office, and engineering copier systems that use uncoated papers.
Liquid Toner
Liquid toner is mainly composed of dye or pigmented acrylic resin particles. It use pigments in polymer beads as well, but they are dispersed in an oil that evaporates during the fusing process. The dye or pigment is added so that different colors can be produced by the toner. Liquid toners are used in digital presses which are typically used for commercial printing on a broad range of coated papers.
In general, dry toners have an advantage over liquid toners in the following aspects:
- No penetration of the paper fiber is required, which means that more types of materials can be used for printing compared to using a liquid toner that needs to penetrate the printed material;
- No “drying” time prior to using the printed paper, which means faster printing and no risk of smearing the printouts;
- More eco-friendly for the environment and people around the printer since no harmful solvents are needed;
- More stable colors to be expected and produced.
Liquid toners, however, have an advantage over dry toners in the following aspects:
- No warm-up of the printer is required;
- Since the material is penetrated during the printing process, the printed text/image is much more securely attached to the paper, making it have higher resistance to fading/smudging;
In the production process of dry toners, the size of the individual particles that constitute the toner goes from pellet size via grounding to becoming a powder. All toners need to be tailored individually dependent on which printer model it’s intended for. Depending on its composition formula, aspects like flow rate, melting point, and magnetic and thermal features become different.
In a word, dry toners are by far more common in home and office printer systems than liquid toners. We hope you find this article of value after reading it and finally know what is a dry toner copier and liquid toner copier, and understand the key difference between dry toner powder and liquid toner powder. Moreover, you can also choose TIANSE to buy copier toners for copiers from brands like Aurora, Brother, Canon, HP, Ricoh, Xerox, Konica Minolta, Samsung, Sharp, Toshiba, and etc.
Post time: Jun-17-2019