New Electroless Nickel Technology for Aluminum Plating
Southington, CT. August 10, 2007. Uyemura has introduced, ANP, an electroless nickel technology engineered to improve plating onto aluminum.
Plating electroless nickel on aluminum has been problematic and costly due to short bath life. A normal EN bath can plate steel for six to eight MTOs (36 - 48 g/l nickel plated). Plating onto aluminum reduces that bath life by about 50%. The typical failure is poor adhesion of the nickel to the aluminum, resulting in blisters or nickel peel when the aluminum is bent.
Technology developed to address this problem of short bath life used an alkaline nickel strike after zincating and prior to the regular plating bath. Drawbacks to that approach include extra tanks, process steps, and control over an additional plating bath. Failures have also been seen with nickel-to-nickel bonding.
A further application-specific problem is that strike baths always deposit magnetic nickel, thereby limiting their use to applications where magnetism is not a factor.
Uyemura's aluminum plating provides excellent aluminum adhesion through at least six MTOs. The process does not employ a strike and adds no additional steps compared to normal aluminum preparation double zincating.
This important new development uses Uyemura's lead and cadmium-free electroless nickel product in concert with proprietary cleaning, etching and zincating technologies.
For more information, contact Uyemura Int'l Corp at (860) 793-4011 or (800) 243-3564. www.uyemura.com.
