Image forming member

Claim 1

In an electrostatic printing process comprising the steps of: (a) providing an electrostatic printing master from a heat developed photosensitive member having a layer formed by uniformly dispersing a reducible organic silver salt compound in an insulating medium, said layer upon imagewise exposure from an original and heating, providing both a conductive metallic silver grain image corresponding to said image and undesirable by-products tending to prevent conduction through the metallic grain image during electrostatic printing, (b) forming an electrostatic latent image, (c) developing said image, and (d) transferring said developed image to a transfer material, the improvement comprising: employing a capturing means associated with said member capable of capturing said by-products, said capturing means consisting essentially of (i) a capturing layer being overcoated with said organic silver salt layer, or (ii) a capturing substance dispersed in said organic silver salt layer said capturing layer (i) being composed of a capturing substance having a particle size of not more than 10 microns, said capturing substance selected from a particulate inorganic pigment, a porous ion-exchange resin, a cellulosic material, a zeolite or polar adducts thereof, electrically conductive salts, and mixtures thereof, whereby high quality electrostatic images are formed.