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Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
The authoritative public forum
for Metal Finishing 1989-2025
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Activating Electroless Nickel for more plating
Quickstart (no readers left behind):
Both nickel plating and electroless nickel plating 'passivate' fairly quickly (in just a few minutes). What this means is they oxidize (acquire an oxide skin). Proper plating with good adhesion must be done directly on raw metal, not an oxide skin. So if the next layer of plating can't be done almost immediately it will be necessary to re-activate the nickel surface first.
Q. I tried to plate electroless nickel coated parts with Watts nickel but had adhesion problems. Should it be activated first or is there another pretreatment?
MuhtardiantoHobbyist - Ngawi Indonesia
April 16, 2025
A. Hi Muhtardianto.
If you can do the Watts nickel electroplating immediately after the electroless nickel (in-line, parts still wet) it should be workable. If not, it will be necessary to activate the electroless nickel layer as previously discussed on this page.
Luck & Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
⇩ Related postings, oldest first ⇩
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. The grills on most of the world's cars are electroless nickel then copper, nickel, and chrome plated
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
Q. 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
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
Q. Hi all, I have some Aluminium parts that have been plated using Electroless Nickel.
The Nickel has been buffed to a very high shine so that it resembles a mirror but I cannot get the nickel to activate.
I have tried nickel activator and SS activator but nothing.
Has anyone any ideas what I can do to activate my part?
hobbyist, product designer - Ayr, Scotland
July 27, 2008
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A. Firstly, make sure your surfaces are absolutely clean and have no surface contamination on them. It is important that you are exposing the nickel metal and have removed all other coatings.
Hydrofluoric acid burns
Next, connect the workpiece to the negative power supply and the positive side to a piece of metal. Ideally use nickel, but if you haven't any, use a piece of copper wire or something. Put the workpiece and piece of metal in the electroless nickel solution and quickly turn on the power - you only need a low current density (say 1 ASF) for less than a minute. You will start to see gas bubbles coming off the workpiece - then your electroless nickel will start to work. 
Never use HF anywhere unless trained! If you do, you MUST have the antidote gel on hand for instant use! Calcium Gluconate for HF acid burns 
on eBay or Amazon (affil links) As soon as it does start, remove your metal wire and turn off the power  Trevor Crichton R&D practical scientist Chesham, Bucks, UK A. First, you have to get all of the polish off. That can be a trick because you do not know what was used, so how do you take it off. - Navarre, Florida |
A. Hi, an easy way I have found to re-activate electroless nickel is to tungsten etch it for about 1 minute, then back in the nickel solution ...
Hope this helps .
- UK
Q. Jay, I have never heard of a tungsten etch on this side of the puddle. Please, what is it?
James Watts- Navarre, Florida
Q. I have a similar but more complex problem. I have some nickel-iron parts which have electroless nickel plating (15-20 microns). I need to strip the plating off but normal strippers, as you would expect, eat the base material too. Just to add to the difficulty, these parts have been furnaced but thankfully are clean. Is there a way the electroless can be reactivated without affecting the base material?
James Mayle- United Kingdom
April 2, 2015
Q. Hi all,
Is there any way to re-activate electroless nickel without using current?
- Oxfordshire, UK
May 8, 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 is often the case it 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, or what? 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 completely unacceptable to use electricity for some reason, stripping the nickel and starting over might be your only option. But if you're just browsing for a cheaper and easier option than Wood's Nickel but still highly reliable, there might not be one. Details please.
Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
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 an 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.
- Oxford, UK
by Jack Dini
on eBay or
AbeBooks
or Amazon
(affil links)
A. Hi again. I doubt that simply reseeding followed by electroless nickel plating will be acceptable but I suspect that the adhesion strength would be very low. The most recognized way to activate is probably 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 know of other proven answers ...
But 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 etching followed by seeding and the second electroless layer, followed by diffusion baking to tie them together? 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
A. Asked & 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.
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
Thank you very much!
- Oxfordshire, UK
May 10, 2019
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I am sure that Jeffrey's activator works  Geoff Smith Hampshire, England
Regards, Ted Mooney, P.E. RET Striving to live Aloha finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey 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! Jeffrey Holmes, CEF Spartanburg, South Carolina A. Hi again Jeffrey. I think the metric system is inherently superior. Rachel Mackintosh previously quoted Josh Bazell's 'Wild Thing' ⇨
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 I'll agree that the metric system is neater, with everything (mostly) in nice multiples of 10. Jeffrey Holmes, CEF Spartanburg, South Carolina |
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