Radiation imagery chemistry: process – composition – or product th – Nonradiation sensitive image processing compositions or... – Developer
Statutory Invention Registration
1995-02-14
2002-09-03
Poon, Peter M. (Department: 3641)
Radiation imagery chemistry: process, composition, or product th
Nonradiation sensitive image processing compositions or...
Developer
C430S464000, C430S478000, C430S482000, C430S483000, C430S486000
Statutory Invention Registration
active
H0002048
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a non-hydroquinone developer composition and its method of usage in development of photographic elements. More specifically, this invention relates to a non-hydroquinone developer composition which is particularly useful in the development of various types of photographic black-and-white photographic elements to assuredly achieve a lith quality development without the need for the presence of toxic hydroquinone. Even more particularly, the photographic developing composition of the present invention is advantageously used to develop internally boosted silver halide emulsions containing a hydrazine compound functioning as a nucleating agent.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
High contrast development of black-and-white lithographicfilms has been accomplished for a number of years using special developers which are referred to in the field as “lith” developers. As explained in U.S. Pat. No. 4,988,604, in conventional “lith” developers, high contrast is achieved using the “lith effect”, also referred to as infectious development, as described by J.A.Z. Yule in the
Journal of the Franklin Institute
, vol. 239, 221-230, (145). The traditional “lith developers” are characterized by the presence of hydroquinone as the sole developer and a low sulfite ion concentration so as not to impede the infectious development mechanism. However, the conventional “lith” developers suffer from a number of recognized serious deficiencies which encumber their utility. For instance, the developer exhibits low capacity as a result of the fact that it contains hydroquinone as the sole developing agent and, further, aldehyde tends to react with the hydroquinone developer to cause undesirable changes in development activity. Further, the low sulfite ion concentration is inadequate to provide effective protection against aerial oxidation. As a consequence, the conventional “lith” developer solution is lacking in stability.
One known alternative to the use of conventional “lith” developers is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,269,929. This patent describes high contrast development of photographic elements as performed in the presence of a hydrazine compound with an aqueous alkaline developing solution, which has a pH of about 10 and below 12 and contains a dihydroxybenzene developing agent, a 3-pyrazolidone developing agent, a sulfite preservative, and a contrast-promoting amount of an amino compound as a “booster”.
While such an amino “booster” containing developing composition yielded improvements in capacity, stability, and contrast, among other things, the inherent disadvantages of incorporating amino compounds as “boosters” in developing compositions soon became recognized in the prior art, such as toxicity, excessive volatility, lack of solubility, cost, and so forth, as explained in U.S. Pat. No. 4,988,604.
Accordingly, another proposal has emerged in the field which involves incorporating the amino (booster) compound into the silver halide photographic element itself, so that the amino compound is utilized as a so-called “incorporated booster”, such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,914,003. In such “incorporated booster” systems, the amino compounds which function as “boosters” and also hydrazine compounds which function as “nucleators” are incorporated into a silver halide emulsion, or other hydrophilic colloidal layers, in the silver halide photographic element to provide a so-called “internally boosted” emulsion or one containing a hydrazine compound. For example, in this regard, representative literature includes U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,988,604, 4,975,354 and 4,994,365 and World Patents WO 92/15042 and WO 93/02389.
Also, a more recent discussion and overview of internally boosted emulsion technology is described by a publication by D.L. Kerr, entitled “AN ENVIRONMENTALLY IMPROVED NUCLEATION PROCESS FOR GRAPHIC ARTS IMAGING”, IS&T's 46th Ann. Conf. (1993), pp. 268-270.
However, these prior art systems still relied, at least preferably, on the use of hydroquinone-based developing agents and as preferably used in a pH range of about 9 to about 10.8, such as explained in U.S. Pat. No. 4,988,604.
However, serious disadvantages from an ecological and toxicological standpoint are associated with the use of such hydroquinone-based developing systems. For example, hydroquinone has allergenic effects. Therefore, the use of hydroquinone poses certain handling and disposal problems in view of applicable health, safety and environment guidelines and regulations.
WO 93/11456 describes a rapid access developer for hydrazine-containing films comprising at least one alkanolamine in an amount of 5-50 g/l; at least one ascorbic acid developing agent; and having a pH in the range of 10.7 to about 12.0. The developer may further contain KOH and potassium carbonate. However, as discussed below, many alkanolamines possess the undesirable characteristic of toxicity, excessive volatility and unpleasant odor. Furthermore, alkanolamines tend to adversely affect high contrast lith image performance.
EP 603586 discloses a concentrated developer containing an ascorbic acid type compound, a 3-pyrazolidone auxiliary developing agent and at least one basic compound selected from an alkali metal carbonate, sulfite or hydroxide. The combined use of a carbonate and sulfite is preferred. The pH of a working strength developer is within the range of 9.0 to 11.0.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,196,298, which corresponds to European Patent Application No. 0 498 968 published Aug. 19, 1992, proposes a photographic developing solution for immersion development having a pH of at least 12.0 and containing more than 0.4 mols/liter of a sugar derivative, or an alkali metal salt thereof, such as l-ascorbic acid and iso-ascorbic acid, which preferably contains no other developing agents and no sulfite ions. The developer solution of U.S. Pat. No. 5,1 96,298 is described as permitting the development of graphic arts photographic materials with lith quality while permitting the disposal of the depleted developer solutions in a more environmentally ready manner.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,098,819 also discloses a non-hydroquinone and non-alkali metal hydroxide containing photographic developer composition. The non-hydroquinone developer solution of this patent contains a developer selected from ascorbic acid and sugar-type derivatives thereof, together with a sulfite, an alkali metal carbonate and a 3-pyrazolidone developer compound, wherein the developer solution has a pH range of 9.75 to 10.6. The U.S. Pat. No. 5,098,819 describes the developer composition as being subject to degradation at pH's in excess of about 10.6. Likewise, Japanese Published Patent Application No. 59-191035 published Oct. 30, 1984, discloses a developer composition, which is especially adapted for processing a silver halide emulsion containing a black dye, wherein the developer is described as containing ascorbic acid, alkali metal carbonate, alkali metal sulfite and alkali hydroxide in a pH range of 10 to 14. However, these two latter-mentioned publications do not describe lith developers in particular, nor do these publications describe testing data which shows lith quality development.
However, in these patent specifications, there is no disclosure or suggestion that these developers can be used as developers for a silver halide photographic material containing a hydrazine compound as a nucleator to obtain a high contrast image.
In actuality, these above-mentioned non-hydroquinone photographic developer solutions do not permit the attainment of lith quality.
Therefore, the art has urgently awaited the discovery of a developer composition which does not require a hydroquinone developing agent, minimizes the need for other toxic chemicals such as alkanolamines, while concomitantly enabling the attainment of lith quality.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide a developer composition which does not require the presence of hydroquinone-type developer components or alkanolamines, and as a consequence, poses less of a th
Bornstein Alan A.
Carlson David
Wan Hai-xing
Zhang Diane
Baker Aileen J.
Fuji Hunt Photographic Chemicals Inc.
Poon Peter M.
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