Learn More About Thermal Paper

What is Thermal Paper?

A special paper that is finely coated with a chemical that changes its color when exposed to heat. It is used in point of sale printers such as credit card terminals, cash registers, adding machines, and other POS-system related devices since it does not require ink, ribbon or cartridge to present any information.

The thermal print head was coming into existence in 1965 introduced by Texas Instruments which are typically used by thermal printers. Later on, it is followed by Hewlett Packard in the early 70’s.

Here is how it works?

When the paper is exposed to a static heat source like a hot stylus or by a dynamic source of heat like a thermal print head, then the image or graphic is shown to you. It is followed by a row of dots that are heated and cooled as the paper is passed through the print head by a step motor.

Components of thermal paper –

Substrate – It’s a synthetic base sheet which comes in different calipers where the coatings are applied to.

Base Coat – It is used as a primer to seal the substrate, and moreover it provides a surface that the thermal coating will adhere to.

Active Coat – this is known to be as a thermal coating where primarily includes a leuco-dye based chemistry system which shows you image when heat is applied to it.

Top Coat – It’s a clear layer of PVA Which is used to seal the active coat that provides environmental resistance and a longer image life which is typically used in harsh or stressed environments.

Anti-static Coat – A coating that is applied to the back side of some papers but it is primarily used as an anti-static coating on synthetic base sheets like Polypropylene based thermal grades which can generate or draw static and can also burn out electronic components.

We hope this gives you a basic understanding of the construction of thermal paper so boost your businesses performance with BIXOLON SRP-F310II Thermal POS Printer or SAM4S ELLIX-30 Thermal POS Printer Series.