American Ink Jet Expands R&D Staff and Facilities.

BILLERICA, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 24, 1999--

American Ink Jet Corporation announced the expansion of its R&D staff and facilities to meet increasing OEM demand. Laboratory space has been doubled to accommodate existing fade test instruments, including an Atlas Weatherometer plus a complete new dye-synthesis lab. New R&D team members include a staff scientist specializing in dye synthesis, an associate scientist specializing in polymer chemistry, a manufacturing QC engineer, and two technical associates.

American Ink Jet follows a multidisciplinary approach to research & manufacturing enabling the development of inks with cromatic, highly saturated colors for all leading ink jet technologies including continuous ink jet, piezo and thermal. The R&D team now has more than 75 years of combined experience in ink jet manufacturing and technologies, including chemical engineering, dye synthesis, color and analytical science, and polymer and bio chemistry. "The expansion of the R&D staff and facilities is a continued part of American Ink Jet's growth and commitment to providing quality ink for the growing ink jet market," said CEO and President, Michael Andreottola. "American Ink Jet will continue to advance its technology and manufacturing capabilities to meet specialty ink requests and to increase new ink manufacturing production."

The expansion of the laboratory facilities enables AIJ's R&D team to create custom dyes allowing for more control over the quality and lightfast capabilities of inks. The team will also be able to increase the development of new ink sets for OEMs while meeting new specialty ink requirements. Preliminary dyes being tested have resulted in AIJ having patents pending on new lightfast technologies which will further enhance dye-based ink fade resistance to mimic that of pigments, while maintaining color quality and gamut range. Current lightfast ink projects will continue to move through beta-testing stages and AIJ will continue to work with new custom applications for inks and other fluids using ink jet print heads.

American Ink Jet, an ISO 9001 certified manufacturing company, is committed to developing and manufacturing the highest quality, technically advanced, ink jet inks for the global ink jet-printing marketplace. The company maintains multidisciplinary research and development staffs who apply Calibrated Color Chemistry (C3) technology in producing inks for the ever-evolving ink jet market. To find out more about C3 technology please email [e-mail].