The product, which the company says is 100% safe with all metal CTP plates, combines a general purpose cleaner with a UV cleaner and a heavy-duty cleaner.

Chris Searle, HDP business development manager, said: "More than 1,000 litres have been field-tested and the formulations modified where necessary to ensure that they are 100% safe and provide maximum effectiveness with minimal effort."

The new product has been in development for a year at HDP's West Sussex site. The general-purpose cleaner is designed to clean and desensitise non-image areas and improve ink receptivity of image areas.

The heavy-duty cleaner contains two sizes of abrasives suspended in the solution  and is designed to clean problematic plates.