Electroplating on Light Metals

The light metals-aluminium, magnesium, beryllium and titanium- find industrial applications in which it is desirable to give them an electroplated coating for (1)decorative purposes, (2) increased wear resistance,(3) better electrical conductivity or lower contact resistance, or (4) facilitating joining. Light metals do not respond to the pro-plating cleaning and etching treatments usually employed for other metals, and conditioning treatments prior to plating are an important factor in electroplating light metals. Processes for the preparation of the surface and the electroplating of the different light metals are briefly described in this paper.