The university KIT in Germany, has this amazing research on pulse power, I think this technology should come back right now. Because with pulsed power this would be very simple.

But the papers are as good as new or not? No information is given about that. Because its important if the papers can be reprinted or not. Otherwise whats the point of having such a technology to just get a few mg of ink back.

 

I love this! You could then make the actual paper much more durable (some kind of polymer like lots of those 'plastic' bank notes?) so it could be reused a lot.

I wonder if this would have implications for forgeries though?

 

Exactly what I was wondering, any deeds could be easy changed by unprinting them. But then I guess they would also make paper that cannot be unprinted, or since the machine works with normal ink only. They could use special ink to protect what is written on the paper.

 

Yeah, paper might become a special commodity (although people have been predicting the demise of paper for thirty years).

I remember there was some UK government law that got delayed because they had run out of the correct type of archiving paper (actually Vellum - made from animal skin), that lasts a really long time!

 

Also the production of the passports were once stopped in Australia because they ran short of the special cloth/paper that is used to make those. I wonder who does research on paper quality and making processes. I don’t think there is anything like paper engineer. Maybe materials engineers do?

 

I'm not sure.There must be people working on paper development but I've never met anyone!

 

I remember that my cousin was part of a student team that developed a similar 'unprinter' around the same time. But it wasn't in Cambridge, it was in the City College of New York. Got a brief blurb on page 9 here: https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/sites/default/files/engineering/upload/Annual_Report_2012-2013_FFF.pdf

I vaguely remember a video of it working, but my 5 minute google-fu has failed to turn it up.

 

There was this company called "Reduse" in cambridge which was a spin off from university who had a laser unprinter ( around 2015). I think it got acquired by foreign company

 

Where are they though? I have never heard any of these being marketed ever. If a foreign company took over I would expect them to commercialize it. Or maybe the army or military bought it and therefore its never been seen by the normal population of the country.