Talk about disruptive technology. Xerox unveiled a new kind of solid ink color printing technology that they claim can produce cheaper color copies while reducing the waste associated with ordering, shipping, using, and disposing of laser printing cartridges by 90 percent.

Named ColorQube^TM, the technology has been incorporated into Xerox’s ColorQube 9200 series of printers. Without sacrificing quality, the technology promises to reduce color printing cost by up to 62% compared to color laser printers. It achieves this through a new method of printing in which the solid ink blocks (“color cubes”) are similar to crayons. The inks are melted and then squirted through four separate print heads that can each spray up to 150 million drops of ink per second. Each solid ink cube can print 55,000 pages.

While this could result in excellent long-term savings for offices, schools, and other high-volume printing environments where color prints are in demand but constrained by high costs, it will be a while before we are running off such copies at home. Each copy machine sells for $23,000. According to Xerox, however, businesses will be charged “…[only] for the actual color you print. Now your office can print low-color coverage documents with low color printing costs.” This is instead of a set price per color copy, regardless of how little color may actually be on the pages. As for the environmental benefits, take a look at the site for a visual on how much waste can be spared. According to Xerox, the eco-benefits are:

• Cartridge-free solid ink is a true consumable, producing 90% less waste than comparable color laser devices. For instance, after printing 22,000 pages a month for 4 years, a solid ink product’s waste amounts to 88 lbs. vs. a whopping 815 lbs. of waste from a laser device.
• The ColorQube 9200 series meets stringent standards for reduced power consumption. A product’s Typical Electricity Consumption (TEC) is a key factor in receiving ENERGY STAR status.
• Solid ink technology uses fewer material resources and less energy across the product lifecycle, from manufacturing to transport to end of life.
• No-mess, non-toxic solid ink is safe for anyone to handle and won’t stain clothes, skin, or furniture.
• Unlike toner cartridges, solid ink waste is primarily a small amount of packaging, which can be recycled locally using your usual method.
• The ColorQube 9200 series meets stringent standards for reduced power consumption. A product’s Typical Electricity Consumption (TEC) is a key factor in receiving ENERGY STAR status.

Should products using disruptive technology such as ColorQube catch on, it will serve as a great example of how the economical and environmental can combine to provide customers a quality product for less overall cost while “going green” at the same time.
- Justin Manger