Spray development of photosensitive plates
AssigneeAnocoil Corporation
InventorsHoward A. Fromson, William J. Rozell, William J. Ryan
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Abstract
Excellent development of photosensitive coatings on planographic printing plates is achieved by directing a dynamic flow of fresh alkaline developer solution that impinges on a target area of the coating extending the width of the plate and floods the target area with a turbulent flow. At sufficient volumetric flow rate, the developer solution at the target area is constantly displaced during the development time, whereby no boundary layer forms on and travels with the plate during the development time and thus the target area is always in contact with fresh developer solution.
Claims4
A method of developing a planographic printing plate, having a plate substrate and an imaged coating covering the substrate and defining regions that are relatively insoluble in an alkaline developer solution and regions that are relatively soluble in an alkaline developer solution, comprising:
- transporting the plate on a linear path in a transport direction at a constant speed and subjecting successively overlapping target areas of the imaged coating to a turbulent flow of said alkaline developer solution for a local dwell time long enough to remove essentially all of the relatively soluble regions while short enough to retain at least about 99% of the relatively insoluble regions.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.