Toner

This article is about the copying and printing consumable. For other uses, see Toner (disambiguation).
Black toner container
Colored toner container

Toner is a powder mixture used in laser printers and photocopiers to form the text and images on paper, in general through a toner cartridge. Mostly granulated plastic, early mixtures added only carbon powder and iron oxide; now there are mixtures that contain polypropylene, fumed silica, and various minerals for triboelectrification.[1] Toner using plant-derived plastic also exists as an alternative to petroleum plastic.[2] Toner particles are melted by the heat of the fuser, and are thus bonded to the paper.

In earlier photocopiers, this low-cost carbon toner was poured by the user from a bottle into a reservoir in the machine[citation needed]. Later copiers, and laser printers from the first 1984 Hewlett-Packard LaserJet,[3] feed directly from a sealed toner cartridge.

Laser toner cartridges for use in color copiers and printers come in sets of cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK), allowing a very large color gamut to be generated by mixing.

  1. ^ Simmons, Lee. "Inside Laser Printer Toner: Wax, Static, Lots of Plastic". Wired. WIRED.
  2. ^ "Archived". The US Environmental Protection Agency. Archived from the original on September 19, 2015. Retrieved 2023-05-23. [permanent dead link‍]
  3. ^ "HP Virtual Museum: Hewlett-Packard LaserJet printer, 1984". Retrieved 1 August 2024.