A Writer’s Dream–the Eraseable Pen!

Pilot Corporation is a Japanese pen manufacturer based in Tokyo, Japan. Researchers were experimenting with color-changing ink at Pilot labs when someone changed an ink color from black to no color — transparent. The ink was effectively erased. The result — an erasable pen!

FriXion Ball, the erasable and colorful ballpoint pen, is an innovative and advanced writing instrument that took more than 30 years to develop. After its release in Europe in 2006, it became an instant explosive hit product, boasting worldwide sales of hundreds of millions of pens!

This miraculous ink is thermo-sensitive. It changes when subjected to a temperature of 65°C and becomes invisible. How do you apply heat simply and easily? Just rub it with an eraser and the resulting friction generates enough heat to initiate the reaction. The writing will only reappear when cooled to a temperature of -20°C.

One of the biggest challenges was to reduce the size of the microcapsule that contained the component ingredients. Long years of effort bore fruit in 2002 when they succeeded in reducing the size of the microcapsule to 2-3 microns. In comparison, a strand of hair is 80-100 microns in diameter, which means that the capsule was 1/40^th the size of a hair strand!
One review said:

Frixion erasable pens are hugely popular in Japan, but relatively unknown in the States. I didn’t even hear about them myself until 2012, though the product has existed for 5+ years.

Frixion pens are not the smearing horror pens that you may have used in school — the ink is not rubbed away — it actually becomes invisible when heated with an erasing motion of the rubber tailcap. No eraser dust is generated.

This pen allows me to take correctable notes at work at the speed and detail I desire, yet have the text be dark enough that the resulting documents can be read when scanned.

As electronic documents become more popular, I think Frixion pens will have a bigger role in replacing mechanical pencils, whose gray output is not always clear when scanned.

The pens come in gel, marker, and highlighter types with various colors. They are easy to come by at your local office and grocery stores, and are as cheap as $2 a pen.

Note: Because the ink disappears under heat, do not leave your notes in a car on a hot, summer day, as they will disappear. They are recoverable by putting the document in the freezer, however. That brings up a concern about whether or not text erased by the tailcap can be recovered in the freezer. From my experience, when the tailcap is used to erase text, it’s mostly unrecoverable by the freezer method. (unquote) –internet

The laboratory that steadily and patiently carried out this research was known within the company as the ‘city that never sleeps’. This gives some idea of how persistent researchers were in their efforts to develop this product! How persistent are we–in our life, in our testimony, with our challenges??

Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. James 1:12

So whether trials or temptations, we can endure by God’s grace and strength and we have a reward waiting for us in Heaven!! What a blessed thought to help us get through our trying and overwhelming days! Let us persevere in the face of difficulties, knowing that our eternal reward will be far beyond our expectations.