Many in the photocopier industry have been very excited this last few months by the release of two new Canon imageRUNNER Advance b/w office photocopiers, the iR-Adv 6000 and iR-Adv 8000, which have already been garlanded with awards from leading authorities such as On Demand in the US and complete the impressive imageRUNNER Advance series. In addition to some of the more typical improvements these new photocopiers are introducing, such as greater productivity, more compact dimensions and better connectivity, there’s one advance that really hasn’t been much commented on, but which truly places Canon at the forefront of sustainable technological development. Along with improved energy efficiency and a lower-carbon distribution strategy, these new imageRUNNER Advance photocopiers have been constructed using the first ever high-grade fire-retardant bio-plastic. We thought it’s about high time someone provided a more definitive introduction to this technology to explain just how it is they have been doing more than any manufacturer recently to limit the environmental impact of new copiers.
Bioplastic materials development isn’t the kind of undertaking Canon could embark upon alone. Since before 2007, they have been working alongside Toray, one of the world’s leading plastics manufacturers, to come up with a part organic plastic that would be suitable to withstand all the stresses and strains of being part of one of the company’s high performance photocopiers. Bioplastics have been around for a while but the real challenge has been finding an organically derived material that would withstand the temperatures of conventional oil-derived plastic office copier casing.
In October 2008, it was finally announced that together they had got there – dubbed ‘Ecodear’, the duo had produced the first ever heat-resistant plastic to contain more than 25% of plant derived organic material. The new plastic could perform to the same necessary tolerances as conventional polymers but dramatically cut the typical CO2 emissions associated with the manufacturing process. In fact, Canon has says it hopes Ecodear will be able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 20%.
Previous bioplastics had always fallen short somehow – heat tolerances wouldn’t be satisfactory, they couldn’t provide comparable levels of flame retardance, they weren’t usually as robust as conventional materials – failing to offer sufficient ‘impact resistance’ and they would often be far more difficult to mould during the manufacturing process. Canon and Toray’s Ecodear product has been able to achieve all those criteria and is also the first bioplastic to achieve 5V classification under the UL94 flammability testing programme.
Besides manufacturing emissions, another major advantage of using bioplastics compared with the conventional type is the longer term implications. As Ecodear is based on a ‘polylactic acid’ compound (PLA) which is derived from plants, as opposed to petroleum or other fossil fuels, it can be safely returned to the natural environment at the end of its functional life cycle. Traditional polymers take 100’s of years to break down and when that process does start to occur, it can often result in the release of highly acidic and toxic chemicals harmful to people, organisms and the environment at large. Ecodear will decompose with only minimal release of a low-acidity bi-product.
It was the imageRUNNER Advance series of photocopiers which was the first to benefit from the incorporation of bioplastic materials in its design. Initially Ecodear was used for the keyboard, cassette buttons and touch pen on the C5000, C7000 and C9000 models but as the material has become increasingly reliable, Canon has been able to extend its applications. New Canon photocopiers make use of bioplastic in an increasing number of their parts – for example, the entire panelling on the recently released iR-Adv 6000 and 8000 series are moulded from this revolutionary material.
It’s quite clear, Canon is really trailblazing the use of bioplastics in photocopiers. We can all be very grateful to them; not only for what this will mean for the environment as we move into the second decade of the new millennium but, if it weren’t for Canon’s introduction of this Ecodear, we would probably never even have heard of bioplastics.
 |
© Falcon 2011. All Rights Reserved. |
