Studies On Formulations For Gold Alloy Plating Bath To Produce Different Shades Of Electrodeposits

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Date
2004-06
Authors
CHE WAN NGAH, CHE WAN ZANARIAH
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Abstract
The systematic studies on formulations for gold alloy plating baths were conducted by employing experimental design. The fractional factorial design method was used to identify the effect of silver, palladium, nickel, and indium additions in the electroplating solutions on the shades of the electrodeposited gold films produced. The color of the electrodeposited Hull cell panels were analyzed using a spectrophotometer UV equipped with spectral reflectance accessories. Color quantification for the electrodeposited gold films produced was conducted by employing a uniform color scale known as CIELAB. The system facilitates the measurement of the difference between two color specimens (LJ*, aJ*, bJ*, and L2*, a2*' b2) and the color difference evaluated was reported as .6.E*. Color tolerance was determined by employing control charts where the values of i'lE* up to 5.37 between any measured locations or between any two electroplated Hull cell panels is still considered to be within the acceptable process limit. The differences in color were statistically evaluated to find out whether the additions of each metal to the electroplating solutions has any significant effect on the shades of the electrodeposits produced. The addition of silver and combination of silver-palladium in the electroplating solutiDns has produced three different shades of electrodeposits, which gave significant response against the standard gold, brass and silver. Nickel addition to the electroplating solution has produced electrodeposits which gave significant response toward platinum standard. Also, optimization procedure conducted on the combination of nickel-indium additions to the electroplating solutions reveal gold deposits with a color close to 2N-I8 Yellow commercial carat gold. While addition of palladium give a different color to that of gold with no significant color response recorded. Conversely the addition of indium to the electroplating solution does not give any significant color changes.
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Studies On Formulations For Gold Alloy Plating Bath , To Produce Different Shades Of Electrodeposits
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