Caustic soda as a thermal plate developer

[mcallister]

Hi...

Has anyone have used caustis soda solution in water, to make a developer for thermal plates?
Now I searching about which are the main components of this chemical solution.

Has anyone done this "experiment" before?

Thanks in advance.

 

[maxon]

For pH above 12 you need a lot of sodium hydroxide. High concentrations of this stuff are used to etch or dissolve aluminum. I believe manufacturers use potassium hyd. for a reason, along other ingredients.

 

[ansoft]

Why don't you take a developer for conventional plates (it is very very cheap) and dilute 1:6 or 1:9 and use it? It is not best but...works with some plates.
This is the craziest thing I heard this week- NaOH for developer....

 

[Dan Roll]

Actually, the source of the alkalinity needed to develop plates makes little difference to how the product works. Potassium or sodium hydroxide are not that different, triethanolamine is more commonly used in commercial developers. Caustic soda is usually sold at 50% concentration and this would be way too strong for developing plates. Maybe diluted 7.5/1 with water and mixed with enough benzyl alcohol to bring the alcohol content to five percent of the total would work about as well as commercial developers. Be careful when handling caustic soda, it may not feel like it is burning you, but it is. I have a burn on my ankle from splashing 50% caustic on my sock without realizing it. By the time I felt some irritation, I had a third degree chemical burn that left a scar the size of a half dollar.