Wet chemical metallising process for pre-activated plastic substrates - involves collecting used metallising soln., activating soln. and aq. washings for processing and recycling in the process

摘要

A wet-chemical process for metallising electrically non-conducting, chemically pre-activated plastic substrates (I), esp. fleece, needled felt or open-pore foam strips, involves treating (I) with a metallising soln. (II), separating (II) from (I) under gravity or by centrifuging, and washing (I) with water. The novelty is that the sepd. soln. (II) and the washings are collected separately and reprocessed: the old soln. (II) is adjusted to neutral pH and distilled, and the distillate is used again as water for washing; the washings from the first rinse are mixed with chemical metallising components (III) to give a re-usable metallising soln. USE/ADVANTAGE - The process enables the solns. and washing water from the metallising process to be recovered and re-used, thus eliminating wastage and the problems and cost associated with disposal of contaminated effluents.