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AssigneesMitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., Mikuni Color Ltd.
InventorsYasuharu Suda, Hiroshi Tonegawa, Minoru Sueda, Hideaki Sakurai, Yoshiyuki Tasaka, Yasuhiro Akita, Toyoshi Ohto, Kimihiko Ohya, Shuuichi Nagahata
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Disclosed are a printing plate precursor, a fabrication process of the printing plate precursor, a fabrication process of a printing plate, a regeneration process of the printing plate, a printing press, and a coating formulation for the printing plate precursor. According to the present invention, a printing plate can be fabricated directly from digital data, and sufficient image quality can be obtained without a developing step, i.e., a developer. To permit repeated use of the precursor, the precursor has a surface, which contains a photocatalyst and is capable of showing hydrophilicity when exposed to activating light having energy higher than band gap energy of the photocatalyst. A coating formulation—which comprises fine particles of a thermoplastic resin having both a property that the particles unite to the surface when heated and a property that the particles decompose under action of the photocatalyst when exposed to activating light having energy higher than band gap energy of the photocatalyst—is applied as a hydrophobizing agent onto the surface. At least a part of the surface of the precursor is heated such that the fine particles applied on the part of the surface are fixed to form a hydrophobic image area. The fine particles applied on the remaining part of the surface with the image area formed thereon are then removed.
A coating formulation for a printing plate precursor having a surface, which contains a photocatalyst and is capable of showing hydrophilicity when exposed to activating light having energy higher than band gap energy of said photocatalyst, said coating formulation being to be applied onto said surface,
A coating formulation according to clam 1, wherein said photocatalyst is a titanium oxide photocatalyst.
A printing plate precursor having a surface, which contains a photocatalyst and is capable of showing hydrophilicity when exposed to activating light having energy higher than band gap energy of said photocatalyst, comprising:
A printing plate precursor according to clam 14, wherein said photocatalyst is a titanium oxide photocatalyst.
A printing press comprising:
A process for fabricating a printing plate having a surface, which contains a photocatalyst and is capable of showing hydrophilicity when exposed to light having energy higher than band gap energy of said photocatalyst, to form a hydrophobic image area in at least a part of said surface of said printing plate precursor, which comprises:
A process for regenerating a printing plate having a surface and an image area formed on said surface, said surface containing a photocatalyst and being capable of showing hydrophilicity when exposed to activating light having energy higher than band gap energy of said photocatalyst, and said image area comprising a thermoplastic resin having both a property that said fine particles unite to said surface of said printing plate to form said image area when heated and a property that said fine particles decompose under action of said photocatalyst when exposed to said activating light, which comprises:
A process for regenerating a printing plate having a surface and an image area formed on said surface, said surface containing a photocatalyst and being capable of showing hydrophilicity when exposed to activating light having energy higher than band gap energy of said photocatalyst, and said image area comprising fine particles of a thermoplastic resin having both a property that said fine particles unite to said surface of said printing plate to form said image area when heated and a property that said fine particles decompose under action of said photocatalyst when exposed to said activating light, which comprises:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.