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Sound technical content, curated with aloha by
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Pine Beach, NJ

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Electroless nickel

Q. Hi ,

1. Is it possible to electroplate further on ENP (high phosphorous).

2. Is it possible to plate en on EN.

Thanks in anticipation,

Qutubuddin Saify
- Ajman, U.A.E.
2002

A. 1. Sure. The best quality chrome plated wheels include electroless nickel plating before the decorative nickel-chrome.

2. I don't see why not, although I assume you have to do rigorous activation.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

Thanks Ted, would you help me with the activation steps.

Best regards,

Qutubuddin Saify
- Ajman, U.A.E.

A. To activate EN you should use a strike nickel solution or a cathodic cyanide cleaner.

Sara Michaeli
Tel-Aviv-Yafo, Israel

November 2013

A. Hi Qutubuddin. A Wood's Nickel Strike is probably the best way to activate electroless nickel for plating. But the sooner you do the plating the better.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

Hi all,
Is there any way to re-activate electroless nickel without using current?

Claudio Picchi
- Oxfordshire, UK
May 2, 2019

A. Hi Claudio. Almost anything is possible. Simply stripping the electroless nickel and starting over is one way. We have nearly a dozen other threads that talk about re-activating electroless nickel if you are patient in searching the site.

But as often the case it all depends on many things that haven't been mentioned yet: what is the substrate; is it low, mid, or high phosphorous EN; has it been heat treated? Why do you want to re-activate -- to chrome plate, to add more electroless nickel? Was the need for more nickel discovered immediately or months later -- usually the older the nickel is, the harder it is to activate.

Finally, how imperative is it that current not be used? If it is totally unacceptable to use electricity, stripping the nickel and starting over might be the only option. But if you're just browsing for a cheaper option than Wood's Nickel but still highly reliable, there probably isn't one. Details please.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
May 2019

May 8, 2019

Q. Hi Ted,
Thanks for your reply, here are some infos:

1. The substrate is mid phosphorous nickel
2. It is not heat treated (except the drying step which is in a oven but less than 100 °C degrees. I can also avoid to dry it in a oven if required)
3. I don't want to strip it. I would like to remove the oxides on the surface for further electroless plating. So, after reactivation, I will put a seed layer of Palladium and, on top of it another electroless coating (could be either Ni or Cu).
4. This nickel coating could be few weeks old.
5. Avoiding current is strictly mandatory, that's why I can't use electro-cleaning and Wood's nickel strike

Hope it helps but if you need any other info, please feel free to ask.

Claudio Picchi [returning]
- Oxford, UK

A. Hi again. The recognized way to activate is with Wood's Nickel or a similar strike bath; second choice would probably be stripping and starting over. When you eliminate those, I don't think there is a proven answer, only suggestions for experiments ...

"Electrodeposition: The Materials Science of Coatings & Substrates"
by Jack Dini
diniE

on eBay or

AbeBooks

or Amazon

(affil links)

And when it comes to that, it's time for my favorite plating text book and the weirdest, Dini's "Electrodeposition" which includes possibilities from mechanical roughening to strong acids to diffusion of the plating layers to try to regain adhesion. Maybe roughening followed by seeding and the second electroless layer, followed by diffusion baking to tie them together? Or hopefully an experienced electroless nickel plater can relate some idea that worked for them.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
May 2019

May 9, 2019

Asked and answered before (thread 17382). I have used this on old, passive nickel with excellent results.

Clean, Rinse, Activate, rinse, plate in any conventional nickel bath.

April 11, 2017

A. Here is the iodine activation formula -

Add to one gallon of water the following chemicals:
3 Fluid ounces of concentrated sulfuric acid slowly with stirring.
One third ounce of Potassium Iodide.
0.002 Ounce = 0.062 Grams of solid Iodine.

The Potassium Iodide is dissolved in a separate small amount of water and the solid iodine is added. When the iodine has dissolved the solution is added to the cold diluted sulfuric acid solution and thoroughly mixed. In use, the iodine should be added periodically to maintain a straw color.

Ambient temp, no current, 1-2 minutes.

Rinse.

Nickel plate

Jeffrey Holmes, CEF
Spartanburg, South Carolina

Thanks Jeffrey!

Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
May 2019

Thank you very much!

Claudio Picchi [returning]
- Oxfordshire, UK
May 10, 2019

May 12, 2019

I am sure that Jeffrey's activator works

BUT

A US gallon is 3.8 Litres; An Imperial (UK) gallon is 4.2 Litres

A US fluid ounce is 29.5 ml

An Imperial fluid ounce is 28.4 ml

And would that ounce be an avoirdupois ounce of 28.3 g or an apothecaries (Troy) ounce of 31g ?

Does it matter ?

NASA lost a $125 million Mars orbiter because one engineering team used metric units while another used English units.

America leads the world in many fields. It is time it caught up in this.

Geoff Smith
Hampshire, England

Hi Geoff. Our readers are technically savvy enough to realize the superiority of the metric system, so no need to shame the USA for its habits. There was a big metric push 25 years ago but it fizzled out and I think it's unlikely to regain currency soon. I think the metric system must be used in school, and that people should consciously use it with their young children. Then it may become like immigrants and their learning of a new language -- only some of the old timers will ever become comfortable with it, but all the kids will use it and the old ways will die off :-)

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
May 2019

June 8, 2019

I dunno' about your comments, Ted. Being an American, I've known our gallons/inches/pounds system as long as I can remember, but being a Chemistry major, I'm entirely comfortable with the metric system, and can use either interchangeably. The tires on my cars are 145/13 and 245/17. LOL!

And if you want to do quatloos/megans, that will work too. It's all the same.

Jeffrey Holmes, CEF
Spartanburg, South Carolina

A. Hi again Jeffrey. Presumably you at least agree that the metric system is inherently far superior? Rachel Mackintosh previously quoted Josh Bazell's 'Wild Thing':

"Wild Thing"

on AbeBooks

or eBay on

Amazon

(affil links)

HOW TO USE THE METRIC SYSTEM
"In metric, one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree Celsius, which is one percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point. An amount of hydrogen weighing the same amount has exactly one mole of atoms in it. Whereas in the American system, the answer to How much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water? is Go f*** yourself, because you can't directly relate any of those quantities."

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
June 2019

June 10, 2019

"Presumably you at least agree that the metric system is inherently far superior?"

I'll agree that the metric system is neater, with everything (mostly) in nice multiples of 10.

How that's "inherently superior" I dunno'.

To date the only manned mission to the moon and back was done in inches/pounds, and, although NASA adopted the metric system in 1990, both are still sometimes used.

We won WWII using the supposedly inferior English system.

You can think of 100 other examples.

As I said, I don't care. A glass of fine French Champagne is just as delicious whether it's 5 ounces or 147.868 ml.

Jeffrey Holmes, CEF
Spartanburg, South Carolina

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