Electroplating

Gold is the most precious of all metals with excellent electrical and thermal conductivity. It is mainly used because of its good corrosion resistance. Soldering, welding or bonding is possible without any problems even after long periods of storage. By minimising alloying (0.1-1%) with metals such as nickel or cobalt, even more wear-resistant layers can be produced without losing the advantages of pure gold. Due to their excellent tribological properties, they are particularly valued for connectors. Pure gold layers can also be produced in high purity and soft for applications in the chemical industry, where excellent corrosion resistance is required. Gold plating can be applied directly to stainless steel without any problems. Nowadays, almost every electronic device has something gold-plated in the contact area.

Silver is a precious metal that occurs naturally in its purest form. It has the highest electrical and thermal conductivity and is the ‘whitest’ of all metals thanks to its high light reflection. Silver-plated objects can be found almost everywhere in everyday life, for example in electronics and electrics, in the household, in lamps and decorative items.

RERO AG mainly uses silver plating in the electronics and electrical engineering sector, which can range from several millivolts to kilovolts. The only disadvantage is that it tarnishes quickly in sulphide-containing air, but this can be prevented by passivation.

Nickel coatings offer excellent corrosion protection in addition to good wear resistance, solderability, weldability, polishability and ductility. Electroplated nickel is magnetic and the ideal coating for many applications. For electronic components, nickel is often plated directly onto non-ferrous metal and then further coated with gold or silver. Decorative items are often chrome-plated afterwards. Ferrous materials are copper-plated beforehand.

Choose the layer that meets your requirements from the different nickel variants.

Tin is a very soft metal with a low melting point and is often used in electronics and electrical engineering. RERO AG only uses lead-free tin plating.

While the well-known bright tin has proven itself for most electronic applications, matt and semi-bright tin bath types are used today due to the increasing switch to the reflow soldering process. In addition, all tin types can be treated with a post-dip solution, which ensures solderability over a longer period of time.

Bright chrome plating (decorative chrome plating) involves the deposition of a very thin layer of chrome, usually 0.2 to 0.5 µm.

Chrome layers have various useful properties: they are corrosion-resistant, very hard and have high chemical and heat resistance.

Due to the low thickness of such chrome layers, the lustre of the finished chrome-plated workpiece is determined not only by the chrome layer itself, but also by the underlying layer (usually nickel).