Dear SHArK Participant,

We have just found out that the Epson R800 Ink Jet Printer has been discontinued.

(see: http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consumer/consDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCooki...)

As you may know we had to switch to using this printer rather than the HP TIPS system at the last minute when HP withdrew from providing their TIPS product for distribution. We really didn’t have the necessary time to gain experience with this printer before we distributed the SHArK Beta Kits and this resulted in many problems over the summer the worst of which was the frequent clogging of the print heads.

Given the problems we with clogging of the print heads in this printer, its discontinuation is both good and bad news. The bad news is we and the SHArK beta sites have invested quite an effort in trying to work out the problems with clogging the heads in this printer, but the good news is that this printer appeared to be the biggest problem with actually achieving high throughput printing and screening and so hopefully new directions will get people actually printing and screening instead of troubleshooting printers. Also this printer was more expensive than we would like for large-scale implementation of our printing and screening effort. We, and I assume the other SHArK participants, will continue to share information about this printer with groups that have them and want to continue printing with them. My recommendation is to get these printers running (while they are still under warranty) and use them as the high quality photographic printers that they are.

We have decided to push ahead on two tracks: We have identified a new model HP printer (the D5400 series) that appears to have the requirements we need for continuation of the project. These qualities include the ability to print on CDs and DVDs that allows us to adapt the CD holder for our glass substrates to pass through the printer, five separate ink jet cartridges with nozzles on the cartridges (if it is clogged start with a new cartridge) and a price that is under $100. We are in the process of purchasing several of these printers. Of course any other participants are encouraged to also look into these or other ink jet printers but it appears that HP printers, that were the ones we originally used in our research, have the significant advantage that new nozzles come with every ink jet cartridge. We will also be working to further develop the simple pipetting method for preparing metal oxide libraries. Jennifer Schuttlefield (jschuttl@uwyo.edu) who is a new post doc in my group will be working on this with the goal of running a workshop for high school teachers in Wyoming this summer. We will keep you posted on the progress on both these efforts on the SHArK Web Site.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank all the people who participated and are continuing to participate in this project. Even with the difficulties we encountered last summer I think we had a very successful meeting at CSU in August and the enthusiasm for the project does not seemed diminished at all. When the Dreyfus grant runs out this January the SHArK project will be incorporated into the new NSF funded Center for Chemical Innovation entitled “Powering the Planet” (http://www.ccisolar.caltech.edu/) a five year multi-institutional research effort that also has the goal of developing solar water splitting systems. The University of Wyoming will be leading the outreach effort for combinatorial screening kits for oxide semiconductors capable of solar water splitting.

Bruce