Method of preparing silver carboxylate soaps

1. A method of forming a silver soap of a long chain carboxylic acid comprising:

(A) preparing a dispersion of a long chain carboxylic acid in water, with no alkali or ammonia salt of said acid present in the dispersion while said long chain carboxylic acid is maintained above its melting point but below the boiling point of the dispersion;

(B) converting a first portion of said long chain carboxylic acid to one or more alkali metal salts of said long chain carboxylic acid by the addition of one or more alkali metal hydroxides;

(C) converting the remainder of said long chain carboxylic acid to one or more alkali metal salts of said long chain carboxylic acid by the addition of one or more alkali metal hydroxides;

(D) cooling the dispersion, and thereafter; and

(E) converting the mixture of said long chain alkali metal salts of said long chain carboxylic acid to a silver soap of said long chain carboxylic acid;

so long as one of said alkali metal hydroxides in step (B) or (C) but not both is lithium hydroxide.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising adding preformed silver halide grains at any step in the process of preparing the silver soap of a long chain carboxylic acid to form a silver halide/silver carboxylate soap.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein adding the preformed silver halide occurs between steps (D) and (E).

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the alkali metal hydroxide in step (B) is sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, ammonium hydroxide or mixtures thereof, and the alkali metal hydroxide in step (C) is lithium hydroxide.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the ratio of lithium hydroxide in step (C) to alkali metal hydroxide in step (B) is from about 2 to about 80 mole %.

6. The method of claim 4 wherein the ratio of lithium hydroxide in step (C) to alkali metal hydroxide in step (B) is from about 5 to about 25 mole %.

7. The method of claim 4 wherein the alkali metal hydroxide in step (B) is sodium hydroxide and the alkali metal hydroxide in step (C) is lithium hydroxide.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein said long chain carboxylic acid is a long-chain aliphatic carboxylic acid having 10 to 30 carbon atoms or a mixture of long-chain aliphatic carboxylic acids, at least one of which is behenic acid.

9. A method of preparing a photothermographic coating formulation by chemically and spectrally sensitizing the silver halide/silver carboxylate soap of claim 2 .

10. The method of claim 9 wherein said spectral sensitizing dye spectrally sensitizes the silver halide grains of said photothermographic emulsion to from about 600 to about 1100 nm.

11. The method of claim 9 wherein said chemical sensitization is carried out by decomposing an organic sulfur containing compound on or around said silver halide grains to chemically sensitize said silver halide grains.

12. The method of claim 1 further comprising converting a portion of said silver long chain carboxylic acid to photosensitive silver halide by one or more additions of a halogen-containing compound in an amount of from about 10 −4 to about 10 −1 mol of halogen atom per mol of reducible silver ions.

13. The method of claim 2 further comprising adding a binder and a reducing agent composition to said silver halide/silver carboxylate soap to form a photothermographic coating formulation.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein said reducing agent composition comprises a hindered phenol, a hindered bis-phenol, or a hindered tris-phenol reducing agent and said binder is a hydrophobic binder or an aqueous latex binder.

15. The method of claim 13 further comprising coating said photothermographic emulsion formulation on a support.

16. A method of preparing a photothermographic material comprising:

(A) preparing a dispersion of a long chain carboxylic acid in water, with no alkali or ammonia salt of said acid present in the dispersion while the acid is maintained above its melting point but below the boiling point of the dispersion;

(B) converting a first portion of the long chain carboxylic acid to one or more alkali metal salts of the long chain carboxylic acid by the addition of one or more alkali metal hydroxides;

(C) converting the remainder of the long chain carboxylic acid to one or more alkali metal salts of the long chain carboxylic acid by the addition of one or more alkali metal hydroxides;

(D) cooling the dispersion;

(E) adding a performed silver halide, and thereafter;

(F) converting the mixture of long chain alkali metal salts of the carboxylic acid to a silver soap of said long chain carboxylic acid, so long as one of the alkali metal hydroxides in step (B) or (C) but not both is lithium hydroxide;

(G) adding a binder to form a photothermographic emulsion formulation;

(H) adding a hindered bis-phenol reducing agent to form a photothermographic coating formulation; and

(I) coating and drying said photothermographic emulsion formulation on a support to provide a photothermographic imaging material.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein, simultaneously or subsequent to step (D), a protective overcoat formulation is coated over said photothermographic imaging layer.

18. The method of claim 16 wherein, prior to or simultaneously with step (D), a carrier layer is coated on said support underneath said photothermographic imaging layer.

19. The method of claim 16 further comprising coating a conductive layer on a non-imaging side of said support.

20. A method of forming a visible image comprising:

(A) imagewise exposing the photothermographic material prepared as described in claim 17 to electromagnetic radiation to form a latent image; and

(B) simultaneously or sequentially, heating the exposed photothermographic material to develop the latent image into a visible image.