Electroplating technology has developed to this day and has become a very important modern processing technology. It has long been more than just a means of metal surface protection and decorative processing, although it still accounts for a large proportion of electroplating processing, and the functional uses of electroplating are becoming increasingly widespread. Especially in the fields of electronics industry, communication, military industry, aerospace, etc., functional electroplating technology is widely used. Electroplating can not only produce beautiful metal coatings, but also various binary alloys, ternary alloys, composite materials, nanomaterials. It can be electroplated on both metal and non-metallic materials. The industrialization of these technologies is inseparable from the application of electroplating additives and new electroplating materials in electroplating solution formulations.
According to incomplete statistics, there are now over 60 types of industrial coatings available, including over 20 types of single metal coatings, almost including all commonly used metals or precious metals. There are over 40 alloy coatings, but the number of alloys under study reaches over 240. It greatly enriches and extends the concept of alloy in Metallurgy. Many alloys that are difficult to obtain from metallurgical methods can be obtained by electroplating. And it has been proven that electroplating is one of the important processing methods for obtaining nanoscale metal materials. The plating layers that can be obtained using electroplating technology are listed in Table 1-8 for the classification and use of electroplating layers.
Classification and Application of Electroplated Coatings Classification and Application of Electroplated Coatings
In addition to alloy coatings, there are also some composite coatings that have played a role in various industrial fields.
For example, diamond composite coatings have been used in drilling tools for many years. Nowadays, not only diamond, but also silicon carbide, aluminum oxide, and other new hard particles can be used as composite coating materials to obtain composite coatings with nickel, copper, iron, and other carriers. At the same time, in addition to composite plating of hard materials, self-lubricating composite coatings have also been successfully developed, such as polytetrafluoroethylene composite coatings, graphite composite coatings, Molybdenum disulfide composite coatings, etc., which have been successfully applied to various mechanical equipment. There are more unconventional composite coatings that have been stored or are being developed, including biological composite coatings, luminescent composite coatings, nanomaterial composite coatings, etc.
The research and development of electroplating technology is not limited to plating solutions, formulas, and additives. There has also been significant progress in the development of physical factors such as power supply, anode, and automatic control.
Pulse power sources have been widely used in precious metal electroplating, with magnetic fields, ultrasound, lasers, etc. being used to influence the electroplating process and change the performance of the plating layer. The fully automated intelligent production line for specialized products is also applied. Patents are constantly emerging for more environmentally friendly technologies and equipment.
The automatic analysis and addition system for plating solution composition has been developed and has application examples. There are already mature technologies available for the automatic addition of brighteners, anode materials, etc.
All of these prove that electroplating technology not only plays an important role in surface protection and decoration of modern industrial products, but also plays an important role in obtaining or enhancing the functionality of products. Although there are environmental protection issues that limit the application of electroplating technology, it is necessary to completely replace or eliminate them
