• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.344-349
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• 2004

Emulsions were formed through putting small quantity of nickel electroplating solution into supercritical carbon dioxide, and then electroplating in the $sc-CO_2$ emulsions was conducted. It is an environmental-friendly technology that can solve the treatment of a large quantity of toxic plating wastewater, which is a big problem in the existing wet plating, and also can reduce secondary waste generation fundamentally. Supercritical carbon dioxide emulsions enhanced by ultrasonic horn were formed by non-ionic surfactant and nickel solution. Plating condition within emulsions was set up as 120bar and $55^{\circ}C$ through measurement of electrical conductivity following the pressure change. Experiments were conducted respectively against supercritical carbon dioxide emulsions electroplating and general chemical electroplating, and then their results were compared and analyzed. As the experiment result utilizing emulsions, plating surface was formed very evenly even with a small quantity of electroplating solution, and fine particles were plated compactly without any pinhole or crack due to hydrogenation, which occurs in general electroplating. Used electroplating solution can be reused through recovery process. Therefore, this technology will be able to be applied as new clean technology in electro-plating.