Etching aluminum foil for painting while avoiding embrittlement

I'm trying to etch aluminum foil prior to painting for an electronics application. So far, I've had decent success with a two-step process consisting of degreasing and nucleating etch pits using an NaOH solution at room temperature, followed by rinsing and then etching with an HCl solution at elevated temperatures (60-80 °C). This seems to work very well for adhering paint, but the resulting etched foil becomes very brittle and hard to work with. Are there any additives or alternate etching steps I could try to avoid causing embrittlement?

The paint has to be conductive, so I don't think any sort of anodization would work here.

Larry

Have you considered a chemical film IAW MIL-DTL-5541 [⇦ this spec on DLA] ?