Want to reduce your pollution footprint while speeding up plate production? Chemistry-free or processless plates can do just that.

By Bob Atkinson

Another variation on the thermal technology is used in Kodak’s Thermal Direct and Fuji’s Brillia HD PRO-T plates. With them, the ink-receptive plate coating is designed to be soluble in most press fountain solutions, except where the thermal laser writes the image (making those areas non-soluble). Then the plates are developed on-press as the fountain solution removes the non-image areas of the plate’s coating as the press starts running.