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Aluminium Anodising with TEA (triethanolamine)

February 11, 2012

Q. I am having anodising plant in India. At present I am doing silver anodising with sulfuric acid and electrocoloring in tin salt solution. I was suggested by someone that if I add triethanolamine approx. 1% in sulfuric acid tank, it will greatly decrease the anodising time and increase anodising thickness. My question is if I do this thing then will it affect my electrocoloring tank or if it enters in electrocoloring than will it contamininate my electrocoloring tank.

Amit Kumar
- Surat, Gujarat, India

February 13, 2012

Hi, Amit. If there is some way that you can test this in Hull cells, it may be worth pursuing. But I'd be very cautious about making an untested change to a production facility based on "suggested by someone". I'd carefully research the topic, probably starting with "Hard Anodising of Aluminium and Its Alloys at 30 to 35Ț�", by Balasubramanian, John, and Shenoi, Metal Finishing, May 1985. You may want to contact Metal Finishing Information Services in Birmingham, England for a literature search; their database includes a number of references to using TEA in anodizing. Good luck.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

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