I've also had something similar in mind, looking at various water
soluble synthetic polymers such as poly vinyl alcohol, and the modified
celluloses in order to see how they compared with gum arabic. another
thing that I had in mind was to look at the effect of using pyridium
dichromate, and various light sensitising dyes on the printing speed of
gum systems, as mentioned in Kosar's book 'Light Sensitive Systems'.
It seems to me that you will have to define the parameters pretty
rigidly. Starting off with a standard formulation, on a standard
substrate with a standard light source. Preferably using the same film
thickness for each test, though how one measures this on paper I'm not
sure. Perhaps one could use a well sized paper and coat with a meyer bar
or a spinner, then measure the film weight. Then vary one parameter at a
time!
If I'm teaching you how to 'suck eggs' I apologise in advance, but I
would be interested to know a little more about your proposed research
project. It's about time someone moved the alt-photo technology on a
bit!
Good luck with the project,
Alex.
-- Alex Nanson alec@norlex.demon.co.uk Gloucester. UK