Having demonstrated the technique in a lab setting, the engineers now plan to develop a prototype device suitable for an office. They estimate that it could be built for about £19,000 at the present time.
They concede that most businesses would still find recycled paper a more cost-effective solution, but add that the price should fall if it went into production thanks to economies of scale.
Oh dear me, technology for the sake of it. It will never take off, it is just infeasible and uneconomic. Recycled paper is also crap, it produces too much dust, and jams up most printers.
Buying 80gsm basic quality paper in bulk, is still the most cost efficient way to produce printed copies for lasers or inkjet printers, and I do not see that changing in the next 10 years at least.
In the UK paper for draft copies is usually 70 gsm, but it is very flimsy. For everyday B/W printing we use 80gsm. For colour printing some people use 90/100 gsm. Top quality headed notepaper is usually 120 gsm. Higher gsm's than that are usually classed as card.
Cheap printers tend to rip and shred 60/70 gsm paper, and can struggle with 120 gsm. All work quite happily with 80 gsm, which is what most people use for everything. Bear in mind also that there is another criteria of "whiteness index" or in the USA "brightness index". Higher gsm/pounds and higher indexes cost more, but with a higher quality paper there is less bleed of the ink.
