Carbon dioxide bath for photopolymer plates

When the photopolymer plate process first emerged in the early 1960s, a standard industry practice was to revitalize used plates with a carbon dioxide bath. This was also used to condition raw photopolymer plates prior to exposure. This practice was discarded when plates were more and more considered disposable items.

However, this practice does revitalize photopolymer plates to some extent, and has been proven to relax some curled plates.

Previously procesed photopolymer plates degrade in the presence of ozone, UV light, moisture variance. Antiozonants and carbon dioxide act as preventatives.

A carbon dioxide bath is easily constructed. Any kind of small cabinet can be used as long as you can insert a wire shelf and a plastic container into it. The plates are placed on the shelf above the container and dry ice is put into the container. Let this sit until the dry ice has evaporated.