Electroless nickel plating is an auto-catalytic process involving chemical reduction of nickel ions plated on activated substrate. The process differs from immersion plating, which is self limiting, whereas the autocatalytic process is continuous. An electroless nickel bath comprises nickel salts, hypophosphite as reducing agent, complexing salts and proprietary stabilizers. Electroless nickel baths generally consist of two types: Acid EN, nickel-phosphorous Alkaline EN, nickel-phosphorus We will discuss only the acid EN system in this article. Every plating process requires a robust process control; in order to achieve this, an accurate analysis of key parameters is required at given intervals. A rigorous protocol must be observed in order to obtain consistent and reproducible results for electroless nickel (EN) process.
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