The OEM is to increase its emulsion aggregation (EA) capacity by 40 percent, as a $35 million (€32 million) expansion project is completed.
The New York-based plant has grown from 100,000 square-feet to 155,000 square-feet, with $26 million (€23 million) in EA toner manufacturing equipment being added. Xerox has procured over 300 patents for its EA toner, which it claims “produces sharper images using less toner per page”.
The toner is chemically grown, “enabling the size, shape and structure of the particles to be precisely controlled”. The OEM says this means decreased toner usage and waste and less energy use in manufacturing and printing than when using conventional toner. Construction on the plant extension began in 2013, and Xerox said its new manufacturing toner filling lines will create 54 extra jobs, such as “process operators, quality control, lab personnel and additional maintenance staff”.
The project created around 70 full-time construction jobs over the last 15 months, and Xerox has invested $120 million (€109 million) in the plant, mostly in custom manufacturing process equipment. It opened in 2007 and has five stories, 29 miles of pipes, over 100 stainless steel tanks and almost 11,000 sensors that monitor variables such as temperature, humidity and air flow. Xerox and Fuji Xerox have created around 50 office and production printing products that utilise EA toner.
Richard Schmachtenburg, Senior Vice President of Consumables Development and Manufacturing at Xerox, said: “From the first xerographic image over 75 years ago, Xerox has been reengineering the way people work and expanding this toner plant represents an opportunity to meet the high demand for our innovative solution.”