US 4,181,760 AGranted

Method for rendering non-platable surfaces platable

AssigneeSurface Technology, Inc.

InventorNathan Feldstein

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Abstract

A process is described for the reception of electroless plating onto a non-catalytic metal or alloy substrate, non-catalytic to conventional electroless plating. The process comprises contacting the non-catalytic substrate with a promoter composition comprising ions selected from the group consisting of nickel, cobalt, iron and mixtures thereof; and a suitable reducing agent capable of chemically interacting with the non-catalytic metal or alloy and the metal ions in the promoter composition and further wherein the relative concentration of the reducing agent to metal ions is so adjusted as to yield first a reaction of the reducing agent with the non-catalytic metal or alloy and thereafter a heterogeneous reduction of the metal ions; and thereafter contacting the treated substrate with a conventional electroless plating bath, e.g, a nickel or cobalt-hypophosphite type bath or a copper-formaldehyde type bath for the metallic build-up.

Claims17

Dependent claims

A process for metallizing a non-catalytic metal or alloy wherein said non-catalytic metal or alloy is selected from the group consisting of copper, gold, silver, chromium containing stainless steels, zinc, chromium, Kovar, moly, moly-manganese, aluminum and its alloys by conventional electroless plating comprising the steps of:

(a) contacting said non-catalytic metal or alloy with a promoter composition wherein said promoter composition comprises a suitable reducing agent and metal ions wherein said reducing agent is capable of chemically reacting with said non-catalytic metal or alloy and the metal ions within the promoter composition and wherein said metal ions are selected from the group consisting of nickel, cobalt, and iron and mixtures thereof, and wherein the relative molar concentration of the reducing agent to the metal ions is so adjusted as to permit the initial chemical interaction of the reducing agent with the non-catalytic metal or alloy and then the heterogeneous reduction of the metal ions present in the promoter composition and wherein said relative molar concentration is adjusted to yield a molar excess of the reducing agent, and then
(b) contacting the treated non-catalytic metal or alloy with a conventional electroless plating bath wherein said electroless plating bath comprises hypophosphite.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.