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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
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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