Letter 36039

How to do analysis of nickel bath  

+++++

I want to test and measure the amount of nickel sulphate, nickel chloride and boric acid amount in my nickel plating bath.

Bilman
- Turkey

Do you have a lab or any lab equipment? Are you a chemist or a lab tech or any plating solution analysis experience?
Most chemical suppliers will be happy to give you a test procedure for the chemical that they sell you. If you are buying proprietary plating bath chemicals, that company will give you an analyses method sheet and an operations sheet for the optimum level for each. Many will even have a sales or tech services person show you how to do it.
I imagine that you could even download it from the internet. There are many many plating analyses books on the market, most using low tech methods. High tech methods equipment would cost over $100,000 for state of the art equipment.
If you use the low tech methods, you will save a huge amount of learning curve time and possibly avoid results that are "off" if you have a qualified person show you how to do it.

James Watts
- Navarre, Florida

Standard analytical procedures are available in most good electroplating books. Try The Canning Handbook.

Trevor Crichton R&D practical scientist - UK