Adhesion of plating on titanium

A. Hi Kunal. We appended your question to a thread about the subject, and it would seem that a PVD application of a gold strike rather than electroplating would be a better way to start, perhaps followed up by electroplating depending on other factors (it's difficult to provide advice until you offer details of your own situation. Thanks!

Luck & Regards,

Q. I think that old US patent US3891447A (https://patents.google.com/patent/US3891447A/en) can be helpful - Hope it helps and good luck!

A. Hi Chris.

I have one new method to get a very good adhesion between nickel and Titanium. This pretreatment method has given us an adhesion who was better than what literature said. I have developed one method for plating on titanium and next step is to get a number of how good adhesion we have. I know one book by Lowenheim [on AbeBooks, eBay, or Amazon affil links] , 4th edition. where he described plating on Titanium.

Best regards,

ASM Metal Handbook
9th Edition, Vol. 5
"Surface Cleaning, Finishing & Coating"

on eBay or Amazon
or AbeBooks

(affil link)

A. Getting good adhesion on titanium is very difficult and usually involves more than a one-step pickling process. ASM Metals Handbook Vol. 5, Surface Engineering, has a good chapter on preparation of titanium for plating. There is also a procedure to nickel plate the titanium and then bake it for diffusion, ASTM B481, which may be applicable to your needs.

A. Hi Andrew.

Try to blast the area before pretreatment steps. Rinse the part in a citric acid ⇦ on eBay or Amazon [affil links] before HF pickling.

"Electroless Plating"
by Mallory & Hajdu

on eBay or Amazon
or AbeBooks

(affil link)

A. The Nickel Plate and diffusion bake is the way to go but try wet blasting the part first with a 1000 mesh novaculite, pickle in hydrochloric acid and a rochelle salt ⇦ on eBay or Amazon [affil links] dip before plating with ELECTROLESS nickel. This is a proven method.

A. Long time ago, one of our workers inadvertently overheated a section of the electric immersion titanium heater of our electroless nickel bath due to insufficient level. The heater had been picking up a lot of EN plate for several shifts (over 20 mils) due to lack of time to strip it. The EN plate practically welded to the Ti heater and proved impossible to scrape off on that section. No need to say there was no activation or special procedures to improve adhesion. Only a short time at about 500 °C.

"Handbook of Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) Processing"
by Donald Mattox

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or AbeBooks

(affil link)

A. Forget electroplating. Titanium is a difficult substrate. I suggest that you talk to your local university. Find the guy with the electron microscope and buy him/her a pint. They will have a simple vacuum evaporation or sputtering set up which could be just what you are looking for if you only need a thin coating. (Call it PVD and they will be impressed) Physical vapour deposition.
Good luck

A. Years ago, I experimented on Gold Plating onto Titanium Bangle Bracelets. I end up making my own gold strike out of gold Hydroxide and Hydrofluoric acid. After HF etch, DO NOT Water rinse, Go live into the HF-Gold Strike until completely covered, Now you can plate whatever you want.
We never went into full production with this procedure, because we went into PVD (Magnetron Sputtering).
Sputtering directly onto Titanium substrate with gold, titanium Nitride, titanium carbonitide or other metal, adhesion was not an issue.

Good Luck.

A. It is difficult to activate titanium for plating, Brian. To my knowledge it cannot be plated with immersion gold. Please explain what you are trying to do.

A. Hi, Jon. See if your library has Vol. 5 of the ASM Metals Handbook. It has a good chapter on preparing titanium and refractory metals for plating. If the solid metal is difficult to plate, microspheres will be more difficult, but the lack of an adhesion requirement should help make it easier. When you read of reagents to try, please remember that reactions which are slow with solid metal may be violently or even explosively rapid with powder because of the huge surface area. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Plating a wave guide is very difficult without using electroless solutions.
Only copper, gold and silver are the equal of aluminum for conductivity. Copper corrodes so that is out. En of any type followed by a coat of electroless gold is probably your best shot. There may be an electroless silver, but I have not heard of it.
Titanium is a difficult metal to activate and plate. It takes a good shop that is experienced (and good) or a really sharp plating manager/chemist.

A. Hi, Karthick
As noted, getting good adhesion onto titanium is not easy. One method is to nickel plate and then bake to diffuse the nickel into the titanium. If you search the site for "plating onto titanium" you will see a good number of threads where different ideas are advanced. ASM Metals Handbook Volume 5 has a whole chapter of methods for adhesion onto titanium and refractory metals. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi, John.

We appended your inquiry onto a previous thread which suggests that sputtering rather than electroplating is the better way to put gold directly onto titanium.

Regards,

A. Hi Chris. Hopefully a PVD applicator will share those tips.

In addition to the tips for plating onto titanium that are shown above, please also see letter 13456 -- an informative and engaging dialog on the subject. Good luck.

Regards,

"Titanium: A Technical Guide"
by Matthew J. Donachie

on eBay or Amazon
or AbeBooks

(affil link)

A. It depends on the materials you are brazing, the temperature and environment. During brazing process material from the mating parts diffuse into each other and form alloys. In some cases brazing is done in an inert atmosphere or vacuum to avoid oxidation. In this case it is possible that gold is diffusing readily into the mating part rather than titanium. The latter may not be diffusing at all. At high temperatures Ti reacts readily with many metals. One can use Ti coating for (vacuum) brazing ceramics, graphite, etc., in which case it helps in wetting the surfaces with filler material.

A. Sputtering or evaporating gold onto anything is usually started with a thin layer of titanium or chrome to adhere the gold ... otherwise you get the peeling that you described.