What services do we offer?

In order to evaluate the efficiency of an electrochemical process, it is a strongly recommended to determine the physico-chemical characteristics of the bath. Elsyca has the expertise, methodology and laboratory infrastructure to characterize these electrolyte baths: 

• measurement of the electrolyte conductivity at operating temperature;
• measurement of cathodic polarization data;
• measurement of anodic polarization data;
• measurement of cathodic deposition efficiency;
• measurement of anodic dissolution efficiency;
• measurement of specific paint resistance and Faradaic constant (for electro-phoretic painting baths).

Measurements of the polarization data are done from equilibrium up to twice the mean current density of the electrodes in operation. They can be carried out at different agitation levels (forced flow conditions) and bath temperatures.

Even though ionic liquids are in general higly viscous and resistive, Elsyca also has developed the expertise for characterising ionic liquid solutions in detail.

Our in-house infrastructure includes:
• potentiostat equipment;
• Elsyca’s custom-adapted Rotating Cylinder (Hull) Cell and standard electrodes;
• surface analysis instruments including optical microscopes, SEM, Auger, Fischer dualscope, …

Elsyca takes also care of the environmentally safe disposal of the supplied bath samples.

What value do we bring?

Knowing the polarization and efficiency behaviour of an electrolyte allows defining the operational process window (current density, temperature, flow refreshment, …) which determines the performance of the electrochemical process. In case of alloy plating this will also determine the correct composition of the different metals in the deposit.

Since bath characteristics are also an input to Elsyca’s 3D simulation technology, this service complements nicely with an actual simulation of the electrochemical process to predict layer thickness distributions as eg in electroplating (See also ‘Design for plateability’ and ‘Plating feasibility’).

In conclusion, characterizing your electrolyte bath will provide you with a better insight into the performance of your electrochemical process.
 

Examples of electrolyte characterization can be explored by clicking here.