Thread 582/64

Aluminium Anodising with TEA (triethanolamine)

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 11, 2012
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February 13, 2012

Hi, Amit. If there is some way that you can test this in Hull Cell ⇦ huh? s, 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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