Do you know the origin and production principle of thermal paper?

The color development process of thermal paper is the result of a chemical reaction, in which the function of the film is to separate the two colorless reagents of the color reaction. When the thermal print head touches the paper surface, the film will be scalded, and the two colorless reagents will react with each other to form a pattern. However, once such a reaction is influenced by the outside world, the pattern will disappear.

The Origin and Production Principle of Thermal Paper

The Origin of Thermal Paper: The original printing technology was undertaken by thermal paper. The R&D companies are NCR and 3M, leading the era of supermarket cashiers.

In 1965, the Texas company invented the thermal print head, named: silent 700 (silent700), which was used in supermarkets on a large scale in 1969. Japanese manufacturers innovated this in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the early 1990s, inkjet printing, laser printing and electronic printing technologies appeared one after another, compressing thermal printing to the very limited field of running water vouchers such as supermarket cashiers and bank receipts. However, due to its obvious advantages, the device is easy to carry and is widely used.

The Production Principle of Thermal Paper: It is conceivable that thermal paper is a kind of ordinary paper, which is painted with two layers of paint and separated by a layer of film to make sandwich biscuits. In order to preserve the handwriting for a long time, some papers add a layer of film on the top layer, which increases the cost, also called the upper product of thermal paper.

Let’s talk about the composition of these coatings. The two layers separated by the film are usually an acidic substance and a developer of different colors. For example, some words are black, some are purple, and some are blue. Different colors of developer are of course different, but almost all of this acidic substance contains something called bisphenol A (BPA).

Printing Process: The thermal printer has a simple structure, consisting of a roller and a print head, without ink cartridges. The printhead has many tiny semiconductor elements that heat specific areas depending on the text to be printed. The heat after debugging has two basic functions, melting the film and making the two substances react quickly and develop color. Coupled with the roller drive, a roll of printing paper is unfolded, and the handwriting is clear and legible.

The above is the origin and production principle of thermal paper. Do you understand it better?