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Etch Rate Table

Can anyone provide information on etch rates for cleaning stainless steel 316 using nitric Acid? Thank you Brady Murphy

Brady Murphy
Proceco Ltd. - Montreal Quebec Canada
1999

Durney's Electroplating Engineering Handbook [on AbeBooks or eBay or Amazon] gives a figure of 0.0004 inches in 2 - 5 minutes for the listed etching/brightening solution.

Tom Pullizzi
Falls Township, Pennsylvania
1999

Nitric acid by its self is not an etch for stainless steel. I am guessing but I think your removal rate would be measured in fractions of a thousands of an inch per YEAR. Nitric is after all used to passivate 316 SS...it is an oxidizing agent. However add a halogen such as F in the form of HF of ABF and WAM! Now you got an etch. Rate will depend on the usuals of metal finishing...Time, Temperature, Concentration.

Careful if your halogen is Cl you will create in situ a secondary etchant ferric chloride and you rate will increase over time....this can be most troublesome with high tolerance parts.

Jon Quirt
- Fridley, Minnesota
1999

I WANT TO KNOW HOW WE CALCULATE, THE ETCHING RATE WITH OF ALLOY.

Sigal Cohen
- Israel
2002

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