If you are one of those who stay away from digital copies of books, you will be glad to know that some scientists have discovered a type of metal ink that makes eBooks smell like paperbacks. It is currently being developed in the labs of China.
The study pertaining to the metal ink was published in the ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces journal. According to this, the ink is made of small sheets of copper and the scientists claim that it can be used for writing functioning and flexible electric circuit on a conventional printed paper.
This new type of ink basically uses copper nanosheets which are great conductors and are not even very expensive. These nanosheets were then given a silver nanoparticles coating and the mixture was stuffed in an ink pen. Researchers found that this ink works pretty well with regular printed paper and it was even used for drawing and writing on this type of paper. It continues to conduct electricity and retains 80 to 90 percent of it even after the paper was folded several times and crumpled.
And what’s more, the ink will not only smell like paperbacks, but will also facilitate the invention of bendable gadgets that look and feel like real books too. This should urge more and more people to adopt eBooks, especially those who are not too keen on letting go of their physical copies.
It has been revealed that the metal ink research has been funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.