Now e-books to smell like paperbacks

For those who miss the smell of paper while reading their favourite book on devices, there is some good news, ANI reports.

Scientists in China are working on the development of a metal ink – made of small sheets of copper that could be used to write a functioning, flexible electric circuit on regular printer paper, according to a study published in the journal ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, the report said.

The conductive ink could lead to the development of a wide range of new bendable gadgets, including electronic books that looked, felt and smelt like traditional paperbacks, according to the study.

To have a versatile conductive ink, researchers tried copper nanosheets that are inexpensive and highly conductive.

They developed copper nanosheets coated with silver nanoparticles in the lab and incorporated this material into an ink pen and used it to draw patterns of lines, words and even flowers on regular printer paper.

To show that the ink was capable of conducting electricity, the scientists studded the drawings with small LED lights that lit up when the circuit was connected to a battery.

In a bid to test the ink's flexibility, they folded the papers 1,000 times, even crumpling them up, and showed that the ink retained its conductivity to the extent of 80 to 90 per cent, the research funding by the National Natural Science Foundation of China added.