Author: Alexandra Taylor / Source: Science News for Students
Have you ever made a mistake while you were trying to print from a computer? That paper probably went right into the recycling bin.
From there, it was taken to a waste-handling plant to eventually be broken down and remade. But what if you simply could erase your mistake and reuse that first sheet of paper? That option may become available, thanks to a new technology.It’s a novel type of rewritable paper that can be used more than 100 times. Words and pictures remain visible on it for at least half a year. This is hardly the first rewritable paper. But the marks on those earlier versions tended to fade away in less than three months.
Luzhuo Chen is a physicist at Fujian Normal University in Fuzhou, China. He led the group that made the new rewritable paper. His team was inspired by pens that contain erasable ink. That ink disappears when heated. To erase your writing, you rub the pen’s special eraser against the paper. Rubbing warms the paper and ink, making its message go away. But if the ink gets cold enough, the writing returns. So to reveal the erased message, just put that paper in the freezer.
To make its new rewritable paper, Chen’s group switched the ink from the pen to the paper.
They covered one side of regular printer paper with the ink used in those erasable pens. Using a heated pen or printer, they can now write or print on this paper. That warmth makes the ink disappear.This is the opposite of how writing usually works, where ink is applied to paper. With the new system, the spots where you write become white instead of colored because that heat makes the ink covering the white paper disappear. Imagine painting on a piece of blue construction paper with…
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