The products and/or technologies on this webpage are still under development; so the commercialization of them is yet to be determined.

Hexavalent-chromium-free environment-friendly plastic plating technology using supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO₂) can be used in engineering plastics and super engineering plastics.

• Plastic plating without etching uses no hexavalent chromium and is therefore environmentally friendly
• It can be used in engineering plastics and super engineering plastics including polyamide(PA)
• Polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) has heat realease performance when plated and is suited to the manufacture of lamp reflectors, etc

Supercritical fluid is a substance above its critical point (temperature or pressure threshold). It has both the solubility of liquid and the permeability of gas.

Research and development of technologies that utilize the unique features of this supercritical fluid is underway. One example is fabric dyeing technology using the solvation effects, by which a material is dissolved in order for it to be inserted into plastic, of supercritical fluid.

Through focusing attention on the features of supercritical fluid, Maxell has developed plastic plating technologies that utilize supercritical fluid.

Specifically, supercritical fluid’s high osmotic force enables palladium (Pd) as a plating core to permeate the surface of plastic after Pd complex is dissolved in scCO₂.

Thus, it is possible to eliminate the etching process using chromic acid and hexavalent chromium, previously necessary for general plating processes. This chromium-free process helps to reduce the environmental impact.

Plating is generally applied to plastics that have low heat resistance, such as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) . However, plastic plating technology using supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO₂) enables plating of engineering plastics and super engineering plastics such as PA, polyphthalamide (PPA) and polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) that are superior in heat resistance and mechanical characteristics.

This plating technology can be applied to various decoration plating components, electromagnetic wave shielding and Molded Interconnect Devices (MID). It can also be used to create a plating membrane, the thickness of which is 20μm or greater, to PPS*. Therefore, when applied to lamp reflectors, it displays heat resistance qualities. This was a technically difficult accomplishment that was achieved through the use of conventional vacuum deposition.

*PPS has been jointly developed with DIC Corporation.