In this paper, a positive thermal imaging coating was made up of a novolak resin as the binder, dissolution inhibitor and accelerator resins, infrared dye and thermal acid generator, and its imaging property was systematically investigated. The results showed that the infrared dye acted not only as infrared absorber but unexpectedly as a strong dissolution inhibitor in the coating. Dissolution rate of the binder resin in aqueous alkaline decreased with increasing dye concentration and the imaging coating became undevelopable when the dye concentration was over 3%(wt). This effect was believed to come from the ionic structure and strong interaction of the dye with the binder resin, and contributed significantly to the inherent aging of the coating.
Weimin Zhang, Jialing Pu, "Study on the Soluble Properties of Binder Resins" in Proc. IS&T Int'l Conf. on Digital Printing Technologies and Digital Fabrication (NIP27), 2011, pp 339 - 342, https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2169-4451.2011.27.1.art00088_1