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-----Ideas for heating an alkaline zinc bath?
Plating baths only work well when they are at the proper temperature for the specific plating process, so sometimes they need heating. But the large wattage consumed by the plating process can add a lot of heat to the plating bath, so they sometimes need cooling.
The most common heating methods are pipe coils /platecoils immersed in the bath with steam or hot water flowing through them, or electric immersion heaters.
Q. Our alkaline zinc bath temp has been near 60 °F in the mornings, especially after a cold weekend.
Are there any ways to heat the bath up safely? We can cool the bath but converting the cooling system to heating would not be easy.
Would an immersion (or 2) heater work?
Thanks.
Lab Tech - Huntingdon Pennsylvania
November 25, 2024
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A. Hi Mike,
Although electric heat is relatively expensive energy-wise, this will be a very small amount of heat due both to the rather low temperature you need to hold (say 75 °F?), and the fact that this need is only when you are not operating (the heat loss from a quiescent tank is much less than from an agitated one).
I would get an electric heater, set it for the lowest satisfactory temperature, and just leave it there -- the power will go off by itself when rectifier power takes over and only go on when the temperature drops too low overnight.
Luck & Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
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