Brief history of nickel plating

Compared with electroplating, the history of nickel plating solution is relatively short, and its real industrial application abroad was in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1844, A.Wurtz found that metallic nickel can be deposited from the aqueous solution of metallic nickel salt by hypophosphite reduction. The real discovery and application of electroless nickel plating technology has been found in 1944. The discovery of A.Brenner and G.Riddell of American National Bureau of Standards clarified the catalytic characteristics of coating formation, and found the method of depositing non-powder nickel, which made the industrial application of electroless nickel plating technology possible. However, the electroless nickel plating solution at that time was extremely unstable, so it was of no practical value in a strict sense. The application of electroless nickel plating process is nearly ten years later than the laboratory research results. After World War II, American General Transportation Company became interested in this process. They want to plate nickel on the inner surface of caustic soda barrel, but ordinary electroplating method can't achieve it. Five years later, they researched and developed the technology of electroless nickel-phosphorus alloy plating, and published many patents. 1955, their first experimental production line was built and a commercially useful electroless nickel plating solution was made. The commercial name of this electroless nickel plating solution is "Kanigen". Electroless nickel plating has become a very mature high-tech abroad, especially in the United States, Japan and Germany, and has been widely used in various industrial sectors. The industrial production of electroless nickel plating in China started late, but it has developed rapidly in recent years. Not only published a large number of papers, but also held a national electroless plating conference. According to the statistics published in the fifth annual meeting of electroless plating, there were more than 300 manufacturers, but this number should be extremely conservative at that time. It is speculated that the total scale of electroless nickel plating market in China should be about 30 billion yuan every year, and it will develop at the rate of 10% ~ 15% every year.