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Plating aluminum without using fluorides
November 15, 2012
Q. Please if there is someone who can help me. I need to know how can I plate aluminium without using bifluoride in the basin of etch. If not how to deal with the water treatment system.
Malika Bouabbache- Montreal, Qc, Canada
A. Hi Malika.
Fluoride is required to dissolve silicon. If you can't use fluoride, you have to switch to a type of aluminum which doesn't contain silicon. You may need to switch from castings to machined aluminum. Good luck.
Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
(Ted can offer longterm or instant help)
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
November 16, 2012
A. Malika,
Your best bet is to get a certified engineer to help you with setting up your waste treatment system to handle the fluoride. They will be much more familiar than I am with your local restrictions. If you need to use fluoride, it can be waste treated with a combination of calcium hydroxide and calcium chloride, and then the precipitate can be settled with a polymer.
Regards,
- Stratford, Connecticut, USA
Thanks for both of you,Ted and Kris. I will try to reduce the concentration bifluoride because I work around 20g/l.
For water treatment, I already utilise the CaOH, but not CaCl2.
- Montreal, Canada
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