One of the ways to increase the capacity of the electroless nickel plating process is to increase the loading capacity. However, it is often difficult to do so in actual production, why is that?
The effect of loading capacity
The loading capacity refers to the ratio of the surface area of the workpiece immersed in the electroless nickel plating solution to the volume of the plating solution, which has a certain impact on productivity.
The loading capacity has a very pronounced effect on the phosphorus content of the plated layer. When the loading quantity is increased, the plating speed decreases and the phosphorus content of the plated layer increases. After the loading amount is increased to a certain value, the growth of phosphorus content becomes slower and the plating solution is more prone to self-decomposition.
The mechanism of P-H bond breakage is explained as follows: With the increase of loading capacity, the surface area of catalytic metal increases, the adsorption probability of single P-H bond increases, and the decomposition of hypophosphite accelerates. However, the concentration of nickel ions in the solution is unchanged, so the chance of reducing the decomposed hypophosphite to elemental phosphorus is also increased, and the phosphorus content of the coating is increased. Due to the large total area of the parts, the number of nickel ions contacted per unit surface area is reduced, so the reaction speed is reduced.
Through the above analysis you can find that the loading capacity has a profound influence on the electroless nickel plating process, if it is a large area workpiece, some plating factories may not be able to use the upper limit of loading capacity because it will affect the use cycle of the electroless nickel plating solution.
As we all know, the loading quantity often affects the capacity of the plating line, so what to do? You can use Bigely electroless nickel plating solution Ni-809, which has a loading range of 0.25-2.5dm2/L. When electroless nickel plating a large area of workpieces, you can take the upper limit by using it, and in this way, you can increase the production capacity without affecting the service life of the electroless nickel plating solution (which can reach 12 cycles).
If you have any demand for electroless nickel plating solution, please feel free to contact us!
