College Pilot Plating Study

Q. What are the requirements for college students to start a pilot study to conduct experiments on a laboratory scale? We also need process flowcharts for various plating baths on different base materials and information on how to use a Hull cell. Thank you for your help. G.M.

A. Starting a pilot study for college students requires some investigation on your part, but you can obtain information about plating processes using the Products Finishing database at PFonline.com for articles on various types of plating processes. From this information, you should be able to set up experiments that can be performed on a laboratory scale to determine the best operating conditions, etc.

The same sources of information should give you a basic handle on process flowcharts for a plating process. Your flowcharts should show the steps involved in cleaning the base materials, rinsing between the various steps in the process, the actual plating steps, and the final rinsing and drying steps. I suggest you select a plating process that is widely used and then modify it depending on the base materials you wish to plate.

As part of the assignment, your students also should spend some time examining the information available at PFonline.com. In my opinion, this is part of the college experience! I will email you two papers that discuss the use and interpretation of Hull cell panels.