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Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Pine Beach, NJ

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What is in cleaning tank?

May 3, 2013

Q. We have a small nickel plating setup in our shop and there are two cleaning tanks to clean the parts prior to nickeling. Not the strip tanks. One tank has sodium hydride in it. Could you please tell me what goes in the other? Thanks, Mike.

Mike Grzechowiak
- Belleville, Michigan

A. Hi Mike. I could take a guess at dilute sulfuric acid, but that would be the wrong way to proceed. Please find out who you buy your nickel plating solution from (probably a local plating process distributor in Michigan) and invite them in to look at the process. The first tank may contain sodium hydrOXide, but by itself that is not really a great cleaner; a proprietary formulation would be much better. In between cleaning and plating is usually an acid tank to remove oxide tarnishes before plating.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
May 3, 2013

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