Letter 11600

White Anodize 

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I get many requests from my cosmetic industry customers to anodize in WHITE. I can't seem to find a white dye. I clearly need white anodizing NOT powder coating or buff and lacquer. Can anyone help?

Paul Decerbo
Watertown, Connecticut

There's a simple answer to this. Its not possible to anodize white. I've asked myself, and the guy I buy my dyes from said "If you find a way, you'll be a millionaire". So I guess that pretty well sums it up. Its just not possible to anodize white.

Matthew Stiltner
plating company - Toledo, Ohio

Well, now all the 'home anodizers' out there who feel that anodizing is safe and easy have a mission and a way to turn their hobby into a major business if they are successful.

Ted Mooney, P.E.  finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

YKK API America, Inc. in Dublin, GA makes white anodized finish!

Matt Kisasonak
- Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania

Maybe, Matt. They say they offer white on their website, but they also claim they put electrostatic organic topcoats over their anodizing; so it's not really clear that this 'white anodized' finish would be white without the organic (paint) topcoat. If there is a white dye available, or a white two-step coloring process, I'd still like to hear about it. I've never researched the reasons for it's reported unavailability, so I can't say much except that I've never seen or heard of a white dye.

Ted Mooney finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

I was just noodling around wondering if anyone else was developing a white anodize, besides the company I work for. We're developing a White Anodize right now. There are some real difficulties to the processing, but we have some of the rather difficult things taken care of. Maybe someday it will be a commercial process. But for now, all I can say is that it's in R and D.

Matt Keyser
- Stanton, C.

Is it possible to get a snow white color on anodizing aluminum. If not what is the best treatment we can apply to get a perfect white color on aluminum other than powder coating as powder coating will add a lot of thickness and the elements that need to be painted are deep cylinders about diameter 4-11 cm and depth 10 to 20 cm. further more the finish required has got to be matte. Also as the cylinder will house a lamp the coating has to withstand the heat up to 100-200 deg C.

NASSIF NASSIF
manufacturer - BEIRUT, LEBANON

Is white anodizing successful?

Quote from Matt from Stanton, Ct. :-

I was just noodling around wondering if anyone else was developing a white anodize, besides the company I work for. We're developing a White Anodize right now. There are some real difficulties to the processing, but we have some of the rather difficult things taken care of. Maybe someday it will be a commercial process. But for now, all I can say is that it's in R and D.

Reader here would like to find out what is exactly white anodizing and has the process been successfully developed and has it been offered commercially.

Catherine Tan
Finishing for Clean Room HVAC filters with aluminum frames - Perak, Malaysia

Hi, Nassif. Look into electrophoretic lacquering; this is very thin, and white is no problem.

Hi, Catherine. "White anodizing" does not have any special meaning -- it simply means anodizing that has been dyed white rather than some other color. White is apparently difficult -- perhaps due to the fact that dyeing is a subtractive coloring process and white is the presence of all colors? That's a guess, not a statement :-)

Letter 20562 claims a method, and letter 39842 describes a dyeing procedure which will get you to at least an off-white. Good luck.

Ted Mooney finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

P.S.: Additional letters about white anodizing include 41596 and 47306.

The anodizing in white is possible.

Please read the following pdf document to see how they did it.

www.italfinish.com/public/images/documenti/aacwhiteanod.pdf

Iaroslav Vychemirski
lighting - Harlow, Hertfordshire, England

Hi, Iaroslav. Thanks for the very interesting paper! I'm not sure if it's really legitimate to call a process "aluminum anodizing" when it operates in alkali rather than acid, and operates at hundreds of volts instead of 12-18 volts, and is not necessarily anodic because no details are revealed about the power supply, and the process occludes various non-aluminum & non-hydroxide chemicals into the coating -- but it clearly generates a white non-organic and interesting coating. Thanks again!

Regards,

Ted Mooney finishing.com Brick, New Jersey