What's Inside Toner Cartridges?
Toner cartridges
Toner has come a long way from its early origins when it came in a limited color range and was made of powdered carbon. This stuff of course smeared a lot. Today’s toner cartridges mix polymer particles with the carbon or just plastic granules. The heat of the fuser inside a laser printer then melts these particles or granules. The fusers can rise in temperature to as hot as 200 degrees Celsius for just a few seconds but it is this heat that causes the polymers to melt and bind to the fibers of the paper during the printing process. The exact plastic or polymer used in laser printer toner varies according to the manufacturer but two poplar kinds are polyester resin or styrene acrylate.
The particles in toner cartridges have also shrunk
in size over the years. In older toner cartridges the particle size was
about 12 micrometers. Today they average about 8 micrometers in
size. This has resulted in improved resolution. The size of particles
inside a
toner cartridge
In the early days of laser printing, the toner was shaken from a bottle into a receptacle in the machine. Today’s laser printers use a disposable cartridge that often can be refilled by a laser printer cartridge vendor.
You should be careful working around any type of toner cartridge. The fine powder inside toner cartridges tends to hover in the air like dust so it can be an irritant to people with lung conditions such as bronchitis or asthma. The carbon content of toner powder is also a known carcinogen that can cause cancer so be careful not to handle it and user toner cartridges to refill your machine.
More About Laser Printers |
How Long do Toner Cartridges Last?