Zinc Nickel Plating

While zinc and nickel are frequently used in industrial plating on their own an alloy of the two metals offers a number of important benefits.

Zinc nickel plating.

Zinc nickel has received increasing commercial acceptance over the past 20 years. They sought solutions that would go beyond the. Zinc nickel provides performance for the cost premium relative to zinc and cadmium plating. Zinc nickel plating therefore has become the corrosion resistant solution for automotive components to protect against these environments.

Zn ni alloy coatings usually composed of approximately 85 zinc and 15 nickel are electroplated on carbon steel as a protective coating in a process similar to the way zinc coatings are applied. A conversion coating of chromate can be applied after zinc plating to increase the level of corrosion resistance. Zinc nickel plating by spc. Zinc nickel plating can also serve as a sacrificial coating for an underlying substrate corroding before the metal underneath is effected.

In particular a zinc nickel alloy offers far superior corrosion protection than when using zinc alone as the addition of nickel slows the zinc corrosion process. Zinc plating with chromate can also be used to improve adhesion of secondary paint operations. Zinc nickel platings were developed as a result of increasing requirements with regard to corrosion protection in particular from the automotive industry against exposure to temperature road salt and climatic conditions. Common specifications for zinc nickel are found throughout vehicle manufacturing industry and astm b841 or ams 2417.

During salt spray testing zinc nickel coated parts can withstand the formation of white rust for up to 500 hours and up to 1 000 hours for red rust. Various industries pushed concertedly for higher corrosion performance.