Reports of studies began to emerge in the 2000s that found the estrogen-related chemical bisphenol A ("BPA") mixed with thermal papers (and a few others). Several health and science-oriented lobbying organizations, such as the Environmental Working Group, have pushed for these versions to be removed from the market. [5]​.

Contenido

Las impresoras térmicas imprimen de forma más silenciosa y normalmente más rápida que las impresoras matriciales de puntos. También son más pequeños, livianos y consumen menos energía, lo que los hace ideales para aplicaciones portátiles y minoristas.

Commercial use

Commercial applications for thermal printers include gas station pumps, information kiosks, point-of-sale systems, slot machine coupon printers, on-demand printing of shipping and product labels, and for recording live rhythm strips on hospital heart monitors.

Maintaining records on microcomputers.

Many popular microcomputer systems of the late 1970s and early 1980s had proprietary and aftermarket thermal printers available, such as the Atari 822 printer for the Atari 8-bit family, the Apple Silentype for the Apple II, and the Alphacom 32 for the ZX Spectrum and ZX81. They often use supplies of unusual size (10cm wide rolls for Alphacom 32, for example) and are often used to make permanent records of information on the computer (charts, program listings, etc.), rather than for correspondence.

fax machines

During the 1990s, many fax machines used thermal printing technology. However, by the turn of the century, wax, laser, and inkjet thermal transfer printing technology largely replaced thermal printing technology in fax machines, allowing printing on plain paper.

Seabed exploration

Thermal printers are commonly used in seafloor exploration and engineering geology due to their portability, speed, and ability to create continuous rolls or sheets. Typically, thermal printers found in marine applications are used to print real-time records of seafloor seismic and side scan sonar images. In data processing, thermal printers are sometimes used to quickly create hard copies of continuous seismic or hydrographic records stored in digital SEG Y or XTF format.

Other uses

Flight progress strips used in air traffic control typically use thermal printing technology.

In many UK hospitals, many common ultrasound ultrasound devices print scan results on thermal paper. This can cause problems if parents wish to preserve the image by laminating it, as the heat from most laminators will darken the entire page; This can be tested beforehand on an unimportant thermal print. One option is to make and laminate a permanent ink duplicate of the image.

The Game Boy Printer, released in 1998, was a small thermal printer used to print certain elements of some Game Boy games.

Reports of studies began to emerge in the 2000s that found the estrogen-related chemical bisphenol A ("BPA") mixed with thermal papers (and a few others). Several health and science-oriented lobbying organizations, such as the Environmental Working Group, have pushed for these versions to be removed from the market. [5]​.