‘ Secret Agent’ for Xerox Toner Helps Company Uncover More Energy Savings

‘Secret Agent’ for Xerox Toner Helps Company Uncover More Energy Savings

Xerox Corporation (NYSE: XRX) has deployed a “secret agent” to help it conserve more energy. A secret E-Agent, that is. The E-Agent – or embrittling agent – is a special chemical ingredient that is reducing the amount of energy needed to make certain Xerox printer toner by up to 22 percent. As a result, Xerox is well on the way to saving more than 30 million kilowatt hours of electricity by 2008 – enough power to light more than 24,000 U.S. households for a year – and making strides toward its goal to cut global greenhouse gas emissions.

“The manufacturing of supplies – especially toner manufacturing – is among the most energy-intensive activities within Xerox,” says John R. Laing, senior vice president, Xerox Supplies Delivery Unit. “With ongoing Xerox innovations like E-Agent, we’re helping Xerox not only reduce costs but also contribute to a cleaner environment and live the values of Earth Day all year long.”

Xerox is the inventor and world’s largest manufacturer of toner, producing it in eight locations worldwide, including Webster, N.Y., and in Oklahoma City, Okla. Toner is the “dry ink” powder fused on paper to make laser prints and copies. In the conventional toner manufacturing process, large particles of plastics, colorants and other additives are mechanically pulverized into small, relatively uniform toner particles. It takes about 50 of these toner particles to print a period on this page. The grinding process is the most energy-intensive step, consuming up to 40 percent of the total energy used for making toner. The “grinding” happens when toner particles are blown against each other at high speeds inside a chamber, and the collisions cause the particles to split apart.

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