There are countless types of environmentally friendly electroplating solutions; more than ten have been used in manufacturing experiments. Four commonly used plating solutions in production are cyanide zinc plating, zincate zinc plating, chloride zinc plating, and sulfate zinc plating. While the various plating solutions evolved based on differences in the main salt and other components, they are essentially the same.
Cyanide Zinc Plating
Advantages of cyanide zinc plating: fine crystal structure; good dispersion and covering power, strong activation properties, and excellent resistance to impurities; produces a bluish-white passivation film after passivation treatment; maintains good adhesion to the substrate even at a thickness of 30μm or more, with low brittleness; columnar crystal structure, resulting in better corrosion resistance than zinc plating solutions; good solution stability.
Zincate Zinc Plating
Advantages of zincate zinc plating: fine crystal structure, good gloss, dispersion and deep plating capabilities close to cyanide plating; stable and non-corrosive solution, suitable for electroplating complex-shaped parts; wastewater is easy to treat.
Chloride Zinc Plating
Chloride zinc plating solutions consist of three supporting electrolytes. Due to the different supporting electrolytes, the plating solutions fall into three main categories: one composed of ammonium chloride solution, one composed of potassium chloride solution, and the other composed of sodium chloride solution. Comparing these three supporting electrolytes, ammonium chloride solution has the best conductivity and the largest capacity for carrier brighteners.
Sulfate Zinc Plating
Advantages of sulfate zinc plating: simple composition, low cost, ability to use higher current densities, and generally no need for passivation after plating.
