Process for electrochemically roughening a surface of a support for lithographic printing plate

Abstract: A process for roughening a surface of a support for a lithographic printing plate in which an electric current is supplied between a metal web (3) and an electrode (1a,2a,1b) facing the metal web in an electrolyte containing metal ions so that the metal web is subjected to electrochemical processing continuously, 1-20 pause sections are provided in the electrochemical processing and the time taken for passage through once processing pause section in the electrochemical processing is set to 1-30 seconds. With the process, the grain shape can be controlled with no troublesome condition setting to improve a scumming resistance without deteriorating a printing durability and a fill-in reduction so that the plate has superior performance.

Description: The present invention relates to a process for roughening a surface of a support for a lithographic printing plate, and particularly relates to such a surface roughening process which is performed by electrochemical processing, which is superior in print performance, and which is simple and easy. In an electrochemical surface treating process for a support for a lithographic printing plate, it is important to improve the printing durability, the scumming resistance and the fill-in reduction by controlling the grained surface structure. U.S. Patent No. 5,304,298 proposes a process for roughening aluminum or aluminum alloys useful as support material for printing plates, in which process two electrochemically roughening steps are carried out in direct succession which are followed by a pickling step. Printing plates are produced from this support material by coating with light-sensitive coatings, which printing plates, when exposed and developed, give corresponding printing formes of very uniform topography, high run stability and good damping agent supply. The process can be carried out discontinuously or continuously with strips of aluminum or its alloys in the U.S. Patent No. 5,304,298. This patent discloses preferable process parameters in the continuous process during the roughening steps, for example, the temperature of electrolyte, the current density, the dwell time in the electrolyte of a section of material to be roughened, and the electrolyte flow rate at the surface of the material to be roughened. Fig. 1 is a side view of a conventional example having no pause section. Each of GB-A-879768 and FR-A-2336261 (corresponding to GB-A-1487035) discloses the electrolytic treatment of a support for a lithographic printing plate containing aluminum in an electrolyte containing hydrochloric acid. In the above conventional process, however, the ranges are defined strictly with respective to all the conditions and it is difficult to obtain optimum conditions. It is the object of the present invention to provide a process for roughening a surface of a support for a lithographic printing plate, in which the grain shape can be controlled without the necessity to adjust parameters which are difficult to control and, as a result, improving a printing durability, a scumming resistance, and a fill-in reduction. The above object can be achieved by a process for roughening a surface of a support for a lithographic printing plate, comprising the steps of: (a) subjecting an aluminum web to electrochemical processing in an electrolyte consisting essentially of nitric acid, said electrolyte containing metal ions, by a sinusoidal-wave A.C. electric current supplied between the metal web and an electrode facing the metal web; and (b) pausing the electrochemical processing with 1 to 20 pause sections, wherein each pause is set to 1 to 30 seconds. In the present invention, the phrase "1-20 pause sections are provided in the electrochemical processing" defines the number of sections, wherein the electrochemical processing is not carried out, and specifically defines the number of discontinued portions between electrodes in which electric current conduction is not effected. This definition comes from the fact that the web travels continuously through the electrolyte. If this number is 20 or more, the grain shape gets out remarkably. If the time of passage through each processing pause in the electrochemical processing exceeds 30 seconds, the grain shape does not change and the prolongation of time is, thus meaningless. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Fig. 1 is a side view showing an example of a conventional electrochemical surface-roughening process; Fig. 2 is a side view showing an embodiment of an electrochemical surface-roughening process according to the present invention; and Fig. 3 is a side view showing another embodiment of the electrochemical surface-roughening process according to the present invention. In the following, the preferred embodiments of the present invention are described. The present invention employs a process for producing an aluminum support for printing plate disclosed in U.S. Patent No. 4,902,389 (corresponding to European Patent No. 317866), and embodiments of the present invention illustrated by the drawings. Fig. 2 is a side view of an embodiment of the present invention with discontinued portions of electrode plates between electrodes 1 and 2. If it takes 5 seconds for a metal web 3 to pass through each discontinued portion, the time taken for the metal web to pass through all the processing pause sections is 10 seconds when the number of the processing pause sections is two. The metal web 3 is continuously immersed inside an electrochemical cell 4 from the beginning to the end. Fig. 3 is a side view of another embodiment of the present invention in which an electrochemical cell 4 is formed of three cells, that is, a first electrochemical cell 4a, a second electrochemical cell 4b and a third electrochemical cell 4c. In each electrochemical cell, there are provided electrodes 1a, 2a and 1b so that the number of times of pause of the electrochemical processing is two, that is, at a place where the web enters the second cell from the first cell and another place where the web enters the third cell from the second cell. The time for passage through each processing pause section is 5 seconds and the total time for passage through the respective processing pause sections is 10 seconds. In the embodiment of Fig. 2, the only one kind of electrolyte can be used because there is only one electrochemical cell, while in the embodiment of Fig. 3, it is possible to change the electrochemical conditions in the respective cells because the configuration has three cells. EXAMPLES Next, examples according to the present invention are described below. A rolled aluminum web of JIS 3003-H14 was immersed in a 10% aqueous solution of sodium hydroxide for 30 seconds for cleaning the web and then washed with water. The thus treated aluminum web was conveyed continuously through an electrochemical cell 4 as shown in each of Figs. 2 and 3. Fourteen electrodes 1 made from platinum and fourteen electrodes 2 made from carbon were alternately provided at intervals of 100 mm in an electrolyte 5 and the aluminum web 3 was conveyed above each of the electrodes 1 and 2 while maintaining the distance of 10 mm between the aluminum web 3 and each electrode. At that time, the electric current density for each electrode was 30 A/cm 2 and a sinusoidal-wave AC was used. The length of each of the electrodes 1 and 2 in the direction of travel of the aluminum web was 100 mm. The test was effected under the conditions that the traveling velocity of the aluminum web 3 was kept constant, while the intervals of the electrodes, the number of pauses, and the pause time was changed. The electrolyte 5 used was an aqueous solution containing 15 g/l of nitric acid, and the liquid temperature was 45°C. The aluminum web 3 leaving the electrochemical cell 4 was washed with water, then immersed into an aqueous solution containing 300 g/l of sulfuric acid for 50 seconds at 60°C to thereby remove smut components mainly containing aluminum hydroxide produced by the electrochemical surface roughening, and thereafter washed with water. The thus obtained web with a roughened surface had uniform honey-comb pits with an average surface graininess of 0.21 µm. The average diameter of the pits was 3 µm. The thus obtained aluminum web was subjected to anodization processing in an aqueous solution containing 100 g/l of sulfuric acid at 35°C so that the quantity of the oxide film became 2.0 g/m 2 . Then, after being washed with water, the aluminum web was immersed into an aqueous solution containing 2.5% of No. 3 silicate of soda for 20 seconds at 70°C for conducting hydrophilic processing. The thus obtained aluminum web was coated with a photosensitive laser to thereby produce a printing plate. On the thus obtained printing plate, printing properties (printing durability, scumming resistance, and fill-in reduction) were evaluated. Table 1 shows the results of evaluation. In the present invention, the term "fill-in reduction" defines the resistance to scumming in a non-image area from an intermediate portion of dot to a shadow portion. Pause of Processing Quantity of Electricity (c/dm 2 ) Printing Performance Number of Pause Times Time for each Pause Printing durability Scumming Fill-in Comparative Example 1 No pause 250 c/dm 2 100 % C B Comparative Example 2 1 0.5 sec. ditto 100 % C B Example 1 1 1 sec. ditto 100 % BC B Example 2 1 5 sec. ditto 100 % B B Example 3 1 30 sec. ditto 100 % AB B Comparative Example 3 1 40 sec. ditto 100 % C B Example 4 5 5 sec. ditto 100 % AB B Example 5 20 5 sec. ditto 100 % A B Comparative Example 4 25 5 sec. ditto 90 % B B Note: A: superior; B: good; C: fairly good By provision of pause portions, it was made possible to improve the scumming resistance without deteriorating the printing durability and the fill-in performance . As described above, the present invention can ensure the following effects by the electrochemical surface-roughening process: (1) The grain shape and the printing performance can be controlled by varying the pause time and the number of pauses; and (2) The scumming resistance can be improved without deteriorating the printing durability and the fill-in performance. It should also be understood that the foregoing relates to only a preferred embodiment of the invention, and that it is intended to cover all changes and modifications of the examples of the invention herein chosen for the purposes of the disclosure, which do not constitute departures from the scope of the invention.

Claims: A process for roughening a surface of a support for a lithographic printing plate, comprising the steps of: (a) subjecting an aluminum web to electrochemical processing in an electrolyte consisting essentially of nitric acid, said electrolyte containing metal ions, by a sinusoidal-wave A.C. electric current supplied between the metal web and an electrode facing the metal web; and (b) pausing the electrochemical processing with 1 to 20 pause sections, wherein each pause is set to 1 to 30 seconds. The process as claimed in claim 1, wherein in step (b) the pause section is provided in an electrolytic cell. The process as claimed in claim 1, wherein in step (b) the pause section is provided outside each electrolytic cell.

Inventors: MATSUURA ATSUSHI, UESUG AKIO, MATSUURA, ATSUSHI, UESUG, AKIO, MATSUURA, ATSUSHI, C/O FUJI PHOTO FILM CO., LTD., Uesug, Akio, c/o Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd.
Applicants: FUJI PHOTO FILM CO LTD, FUJI PHOTO FILM CO., LTD.
Application year: 1996
Main classification: C25F3
IPC codes: B41N1, C25F3, B41N3