The New Plating Process on Plastics

This process does not use general electroless plating solution containing formaldehyde(carcinogen) and phosphate(the object of waste water regulation). Furthermore, we succeeded in developing a new electroless copper plating solution which is usable semi-permanently by using the special reducing agent. The electroless deposition forms a very thin conductive film on substrate. Therefore, it can prevent some appearance defects (e.g. pits, pin-holes, laminations and inclusions) that occur in the conventional ones. In addition, it is possible to eliminate electroplating of copper from the process by applying the exclusive nickel solution in electroplating. Therefore, the obtained metal parts can be recycled as high quality stainless steel. Given this copper electroplating-free process, 25 u m-thick nickel deposition at the stage of electroplating, at least, enables the metal layers to show properties as versatile as those of the conventional(its total thickness is 25 n m in the comparative conventional process).