Mystery of why inkjet-printed paper curls finally solved – Physics World

You may have noticed that a sheet of paper that is printed on one side using an inkjet printer curls up at the edges after a few hours or days, even if it the paper was perfectly flat after printing.

The effect has remained a mystery until now thanks to work done by researchers at Graz University of Technology.

They sprayed standard A4 printer paper on one side with an ink consisting of water and glycerol.

The duo then used a laser scanner to observe the curvature of the sheets over time, finding that once printed solvents in the ink migrate begin to slowly migrate through the paper towards the unprinted side (Materials & Design doi:10.1016/j.matdes.2023.112593).

The effect of this is to cause the cellulose fibres on the unprinted side to swell and thus the paper starts to curl.

“To solve the problem, glycerol could be replaced by other solvents,” says Graz material scientist Ulrich Hirn. “However, this is not so easy because glycerol gives the inkjet ink important properties that make it suitable for inkjet printing in the first place”.

Another solution is to print on both sides, which is better for the environment as well.

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• Source: https://physicsworld.com/a/mystery-of-why-inkjet-printed-paper-curls-finally-solved/