PHOTOPOLYMERIZING RECORDING MATERIAL FOR MAKING PRINTING PLATE AND METHOD OF MAKING PRINTING PLATE USING SAME

For the production of printing plates, in particular lithographic printing plates by exposing a photopolymerizable recording material imagewise to actinic light and then effecting development with an aqueous alkaline developer, it is proposed to use photopolymerizable recording materials possessing a photopolymerizable copying layer (L) applied on a dimensionally stable base, where, in addition to containing ethylenically unsaturated photopolymerizable low molecular weight compounds, one or more photoinitiators, dyes and/or pigments, and, if required, further additives and/or assistants, the said copying layer (L) also contains, as a binder, one or more oligomeric and/or relatively high molecular weight copolymers which are soluble or dispersible in aqueous alkaline media and are based on cyclic dienes, in particular unsubstituted or substituted cyclopentadiene or unsubstituted or substituted di- or tricyclopentadiene. Preferred copolymers based on these cyclic dienes contain, as further copolymerized building blocks, carboxylic anhydride-containing comonomers, in particular maleic anhydride, and/or comonomers containing free carboxyl groups, in particular maleic acid half esters.