Development of High-Performance Brightener for Chloride Zinc Plating

As one of the efforts to replace cyanide zinc plating process with cyanide-free zinc plating technology, a novel brightener CZ-03 for potassium chloride zinc plating was developed. The performance of the brightener was investigated. It was found that the newly developed brightener CZ-03 had better dispersion and deep-plating ability than the one used for cyanide zinc plating. Moreover, the brightener was capable of decreasing the plating time by 20% and had a wider bath temperature range as compared with conventional KCl zinc plating process. And it was capable of improving the quality and decrease the cost of the plating as well. Therefore it could be used to replace the toxic cyanide zinc plating process.