Enhanced plating adhesion through the use of metallized fillers in plastic substrate
AssigneeFord Motor Company
InventorsLakhi N. Goenka, Michael G. Todd, Andrew Z. Glovatsky
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A polymer substrate is plated with a metal, using metallic filler particles in the polymer as anchorage points for a layer of metal formed by an electroless plating operation. The polymer has a filler that includes non-metallic filler particles and metallic filler particles; the non-metallic filler particles contiguous to the polymer surface can be etched away, so as to expose metallic filler particles proximate to the etched surfaces. The exposed metallic filler particles serve as anchorage points for the electroless plate layer.
Claims5
A process of plating a metal on a plastic substrate, wherein said substrate has an exposed surface, said process comprising:
- incorporating etchable filler elements and etchant-resistant metal filler elements in the plastic substrate so that some etchable filler elements and some metal filler elements are continuous to the exposed surface of the substrate;
- etching the exposed surface of the plastic substrate to selectively remove the contiguous etchable filler elements while leaving the contiguous metal filler elements exposed at the substrate surface;
- and
- plating a metal on the exposed surface of the substrate, using the exposed metal filler elements as anchorages for the plating material;
- said metal plating step involving the sub-steps of electroless plating a first metal layer on the substrate, and electroplating a second metal layer on the first metal layer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.