Xerox unveiled a prototype of a new piece of paper that is reusable last Friday at the Gartner Synposium/ITXPO 2008 held in Las Vegas.

 

Steve Hoover, VP of Xerox’s Research Center, demonstrated the technology by shining a UV LED torch on a piece of reusable paper, which looks just like a normal sheet. After just a couple of seconds the torch left a black mark. He then placed the sheet of paper under the heat of a hot place, resulting in the page becoming completely blank and ready to be reused.

 

Hoover explained that printers can be manufactured that add information to the paper using UV LED lights and then clean the paper using heat when the sheet is reinserted.

 

As producing a piece of paper takes twenty times more energy than printing on it, reusing paper can have a significant impact on the use of resources.

 

“Of course, there are always documents that you want to be more permanent, but we see this as a significant technology,” said Hoover.