It seems like more and more chemical companies are doing away with cadmium brighteners. Perhaps high chemical costs and low volume of sales are attributing to this decline in interest for supplying such brighteners. A quick google search for cyanide cadmium brighteners leads to a short list of companies of which even fewer of them offer a nickel-free product. After contacting the few companies I could find which supplied a product that appears to meet our NADCAP cadmium cyanide system's needs, I narrowed our immediate search down to just two companies.
One of these products boasts in a news article on
metalfinishing.com's site: “Because the former products are no longer commercially available,
Columbia Chemical’s COLCAD 100 is now the only Boeing-approved cadmium brightener available..." states Tom Alderson, sales manager for Columbia Chemical. While this may be true as their pre-recorded message reiterates on the company's call hold system, I did find a line on the technical data sheet stating in the handling section that: "COLCAD 100 is an industrial chemical and contains nickel salts." Now whether the amount of nickel in the product is such that it inhibits proper adhesion of chromate coatings remains to be determined.
The other contender which I am also considering is a product that clearly states in it's tech data sheet that it contains no nickel. The company which produces the brightener is
EPI and is located in a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Personally, I liked the way EPI arranged their tech data sheet and generally handled my successive calls and questioning. Of course the real test is whether either of these cadmium brighteners really work with
our NADCAP cadmium systems.
We've placed orders with both companies for samples of their products and I plan to perform hull cell testing to determine their effectiveness. Please look for my follow-up posting!
William Rosebrook
Process Engineer/Lab ManagerMulti-Flex Plating Company
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