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Vitamin C In, BPA Out For Receipts

by Craig Bettenhausen
September 1, 2014 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 92, Issue 35

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Credit: Appvion
Vitamin C causes the yellow color of this BPA-free receipt.
Appvion’s Vitamin C-based thermal paper.
Credit: Appvion
Vitamin C causes the yellow color of this BPA-free receipt.

A new cash-register-receipt paper from specialty papermaker Appvion uses vitamin C instead of bisphenol A as the enabling chemical for thermal printing. BPA was dropped from many food storage and packaging products over concerns it might disrupt hormone signals, but BPA and related compounds are still commonly used to print receipts. Appvion says its Alpha Free thermal paper is 10–20% more expensive than conventional thermal paper, but prices will drop with economies of scale.

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