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What is the activation process in EN plating

What is activation process in electroless nickel plating? How is PdCl2 important?

I have the book "Electroless Plating" by Mallory and Hadju [on eBay , Amazon, or AbeBooks affil links] , but haven't understood it clearly.

Pratap Bhat
Student - Baton Rouge, LA, USA
May 14, 2009

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Hi, Pratap. Electroless nickel plating is actually autocatalytic nickel plating. What this means is that the solution contains a reducing agent, so that electricity is not required to reduce the dissolved nickel to metallic nickel. But for the reaction to proceed, there must be a metal exposed which is a catalyst for the process. The nickel itself, once it starts, is a catalyst. But the deposition process will not start until there is metal available. The activation process coats the component with tiny seeds of palladium from palladium chloride.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
May 14, 2009

Mallory and Hadju were 2 of the "gods" of EN and wrote their book on a bit higher level that a novice might easily pick up on. Try a simpler book or a chapter of another book first for the basics and then reread M & H's book and it will start to make sense.

James Watts
- Navarre, Florida
May 18, 2009