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Electroless plating - Activated shelf-life

Hi, I am a student doing some thesis work on the electroless plating process. In order to streamline the lab work I was considering creating a stock of as activated substrates (mainly carbon fibers and alumina particles) but was unsure of the following.

When a substrate is activated with palladium from an Sn/Pd two-step process prior to Electroless Nickel plating, can a part be left out as activated for a while (say up to a month) or should the parts be plated immediately due to e.g. oxidation of the palladium or some other process?

Robert Bianchi
student - Msida, Malta
April 12, 2011

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April 23, 2011

Hi Robert,

Unfortunately you should immediately continue with the next layer.
Although the Palladium is a noble metal, it attracts organics to it's surface and you have a good change that you end up with bad adhesion or pores, etc.

Better don't take the risk, you can try to re-activate your samples, but this is not the preferred way to go, maybe your supplier of the electrolytes could tell you if that's a possible way to go.

Best regards,

Harry

Harry van der Zanden
consultant - Tilburg, Netherlands

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May 29, 2011

Hi,
Thanks for your reply. Since my samples were small enough, what I eventually did was keep the samples sealed until required. This seems to have worked out well enough as I haven't noticed a significant deterioration in the quality of the samples with regards to the interval between activation and plating, which was shorter than expected. This said, it's good to know about the problem with organics and I will keep an eye out for the effects you mentioned when looking over my results.

Thanks and regards,
Robert

Robert Bianchi
- Msida, Malta