I've also seen a glue-less paper binding trick where two pieces of paper are finely crimped together with some high pressure tool in alternating v^v^v^ patterns, actually making tiny tears in the paper. Does anyone know what kind of tool does that?
The problem with these staple-less staplers is that they permanently damage the paper. With a regular staple there are two tiny holes and that's it. You can bend open the staple to get back your individual sheets (e.g. to scan a particular page) and if you want to put them back together you can push the same staple or a fresh one back through the existing holes and bend it close.
You can repeat the process as many times as you want and there won't be any new damage to the paper. With a paperless stapler you would have to do new damage to the paper each time. Also, a regular staple is pretty much forever while these crimped folds can eventually come loose again.
What a cool read? I didn't expect lasers to be the answer. I use rubber bands all the time to hold paper wrap together. I thought the answer would be rubber bands or strings (analog version).
Can you elaborate on this? My guess would be, that because of their status as a government backed research institute, they invent a lot, but let others do the commercialisation. So patent fees seem like a natural choice for them, to recover their investments.
Fraunhofer has a ton of top of the line innovations. I'm glad it exists. If the only way to exist is for them to collect on patents they've produced, I don't see the issue.
I'd gladly take every Fraunhofer "innovation" 5 years later if it meant Fraunhofer didn't exist. Compression patent extortionists are the scum of the earth.
“By irradiating the paper with a CO laser, we create refusible, sugar-like
reaction products that we use instead of the synthetic materials or adhesives
that would otherwise be required to seal the paper by the heat sealing
process. In this way, we are essentially producing our own adhesive"
I had the same thought, but there are two differences: the amount of these compounds (presumably low) and how they behave in recycling compared to current adhesives. Maybe they wash out, maybe they can accumulate to a large degree without making the recycled paper worse.
The article doesn't tell, unfortunately. Worst case, a cool technical article is the only thing the technology is good for...
“Maybe they wash out” … “The article doesn’t tell”
It seems like you are engaging in rather emotional response when you admit you’re just hoping and making things up.
That is not a very scientific basis. Are you biased towards this project or Fraunhofer by any chance, maybe just Germany in general?
I agree with all the legitimate criticisms, especially considering that it is very possible that what they’re actually doing is using the laser to essentially create a hydrocarbon based glue in situ from the primary material itself.
It is an interesting discovery and process in and of itself. I’m not sure why there seems to be this obsessive defensiveness of Fraunhofer in the comments here.
There could be several reasons, but the PRopaganda people on this are going about things rather ham-fisted. My guess is that there are specific “eco” type grant or funding requirements that need to push the idea that it’s reducing “carbon” or oil dependence and can do away with mean old, no good, totally awful plastics; and cannot just be honest because of that, because all of the environmental stuff is so frequently inherently dishonest and rather delusional even, because ironically, the money of funding and profit and going to market cause their own greed, just from a different angle.
A hidden little dirty secret in Germany in particular is that all these boutique niche solutions are really just greenwashed, statist “capitalism” rather than greenbackwashed, de facto statist “capitalism”.
They’re both just theft from the multitude to enrich the minority, just by different means.
That’s chemically not correct in and of itself, but I do wonder if through the process they are effectively creating a hydrocarbon by freeing the oxygen from the carbohydrate to create this magic non-adhesive adhesive.
But that doesn’t come with government grants and follow-on funding and subsidies to take it to market under government protection and by being able to use eco-marketing.
I thought that this was going to be illustrations of the marvelous ways that the Japanese wrap and secure gifts without using any tape. When I was in Japan years ago I would tell them that a purchase was a gift just to see how they wrapped things. I might even still have something that I never unwrapped because the finished thing was a work of art in itself.
It's a bit hard to search for, because they make one that punches a hole too (shows up in the video).
You can repeat the process as many times as you want and there won't be any new damage to the paper. With a paperless stapler you would have to do new damage to the paper each time. Also, a regular staple is pretty much forever while these crimped folds can eventually come loose again.
What could one improve how the operate?
The article doesn't tell, unfortunately. Worst case, a cool technical article is the only thing the technology is good for...
It seems like you are engaging in rather emotional response when you admit you’re just hoping and making things up.
That is not a very scientific basis. Are you biased towards this project or Fraunhofer by any chance, maybe just Germany in general?
I agree with all the legitimate criticisms, especially considering that it is very possible that what they’re actually doing is using the laser to essentially create a hydrocarbon based glue in situ from the primary material itself.
It is an interesting discovery and process in and of itself. I’m not sure why there seems to be this obsessive defensiveness of Fraunhofer in the comments here.
There could be several reasons, but the PRopaganda people on this are going about things rather ham-fisted. My guess is that there are specific “eco” type grant or funding requirements that need to push the idea that it’s reducing “carbon” or oil dependence and can do away with mean old, no good, totally awful plastics; and cannot just be honest because of that, because all of the environmental stuff is so frequently inherently dishonest and rather delusional even, because ironically, the money of funding and profit and going to market cause their own greed, just from a different angle.
A hidden little dirty secret in Germany in particular is that all these boutique niche solutions are really just greenwashed, statist “capitalism” rather than greenbackwashed, de facto statist “capitalism”.
They’re both just theft from the multitude to enrich the minority, just by different means.