A Toner Cartridge is the consumable element of a printer. These toner cartridges comprise of a toner powder which is basically a fine dry mixture of plastic particles. It is generally used in laser printers and photocopiers to produce quality text and images on the paper. The toner powder is transferred onto the paper through an electrostatic charged drum unit which is in the process fused onto the paper by heated rollers. A fast laser toner cartridge is capable of producing about 6000 pages of prints per hour. The toner cartridges for laser printers come in four varied colours namely Magenta, Black, Yellow and Cyan.

To produce excellent printouts the toner powder is combined with a polymer which could either be Styrene Acrylate Copolymer or Polyester Resin. The formulation of toner cartridges differ from manufacturer to manufacturer and sometimes even from machine to machine. Normally, the difference is found in the melting point and the grain size.

Most toner cartridge  manufacturers have strict control standards for actual particle size. This is done in order to develop a powder that is appropriate for laser printers. It is ensured that the actual particle size does not vary too much from the specified dimensions. The toner’s actual particle size comes at a size of 12 micrometers. In order to get enhanced image resolution, the particle size is sometimes reduced to 8 micrometers. This results in producing fine quality prints on the paper with greater resolution.

Toner powder is usually made up by combining the ingredients together to make a slab. This slab is later broken down into pieces and further into a fine dry toner powder with a controlled actual particle size. To get a top-quality print, some manufacturers use a chemical procedure to develop the toner particles. Through this process the particles that are produced are more consistent in shapes and sizes. This results in producing more precise high-resolution prints.