blueprint

blueprint, type of print used for copying engineering drawings and similar material. The name is popularly applied to two separate methods, more exactly designated as the blueprint and the whiteprint, or diazotype. In blueprinting, the older method, the drawing to be copied, made on translucent tracing cloth or paper, is placed in contact with paper sensitized with a mixture of ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide, which is then exposed to light. In the areas of the sensitized paper not obscured by the lines of the drawing, the light reduces the ferric salt to the ferrous state, in which it reacts with the potassium ferricyanide to form insoluble prussian blue. The exposed paper is then washed in water, producing a negative in which the lines of the drawing appear in white against a dark blue background.

In the whiteprinting method, the paper is sensitized with a mixture of a diazonium salt, a coupler that reacts with the diazonium salt to form an azo dye, and an acid that prevents coupling. Exposure to light destroys the diazonium salt. Final treatment with an alkaline agent, such as ammonia gas, neutralizes the acid, thereby bringing about the coupling reaction. Because it produces dark lines on a “white” or light background, whiteprinting has become the favoured method.