What is the process flow of electroplating equipment?
Author: Marisa
What is the process flow of electroplating equipment?--Function of each process
II. Electroplating
Getting the required coating on the surface of the workpiece is the core process of electroplating. The quality of this process directly affects the various properties of the coating. In this process, the factors that have an important impact on the coating mainly include the following aspects:
1. Main salt system
Various main salt systems and matching additive systems will be developed in each plating type. Such as cyanide zinc plating, zincate zinc plating, chloride zinc plating (or potassium salt zinc plating), ammonium zinc plating, sulfate zinc plating and other systems.
Each system has its own advantages and disadvantages, such as cyanide zinc plating liquid has good dispersion and depth ability, fine coating crystallization, good adhesion to the substrate, good corrosion resistance, wide process range, stable plating solution, easy to operate, and insensitive to impurities. But it is highly toxic and seriously pollutes the environment. Chloride zinc plating liquid is a single salt coating liquid without a complexing agent, and the wastewater is easy to treat; the brightness and flatness of the coating are better than other systems; the current efficiency is high and the deposition speed is fast; high carbon steel, castings, forgings and other low hydrogen overpotential steels are easy to plate. However, since the weak acid of chloride ions is corrosive to the equipment, on the one hand, it will cause certain corrosion to the equipment, and on the other hand, this electroplating liquid is not suitable for deep holes or tubular parts, and auxiliary anodes need to be added.
2. Additives
Additives include gloss agents, stabilizers, softeners, wetting agents, low-zone moving agents, etc. Gloss agents are divided into main gloss agents, carrier brighteners and auxiliary gloss agents. The same main salt system made of additives produced by different manufacturers has a very different quality of the resulting coating. In general, the additives in developed countries such as Europe, the United States and Japan are better, followed by Taiwan, and those produced in the mainland are relatively inferior to the first two categories.
The combination of the main salt and the additives of a specific manufacturer determines the overall performance of the plating solution used. Good additives can make up for the deficiencies of certain properties of the main salt. For example, the combination of excellent chloride zinc plating additives and chloride main salts can obtain a plating solution with a deep plating ability that is better than many cyanide zinc plating solutions.