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aluminum plating?

aluminum plating?

aluminum plating?

(OP)
has anybody electroplated a high purity aluminum layer onto 6061?

RE: aluminum plating?

Possibly.  Rather expensive process, requires anydrous salt solutions.

A commercial vendor: http://www.alumiplate.com/

You can follow up these research reports:
'Progress in Surface Finishing with Lewis Acidic Room-Temperature Chloroaluminate Ionic Liquids,' T. Tsuda, C. Hussey (The University of Mississippi) and G. R. Stafford (NIST)  
'Practical Aluminum Plating from a Room Temperature Ionic Liquid,' M. T. Carter and G. Bourgon (Eltron Research, Inc.)  
'In Situ Stress Measurements During Aluminum Deposition from AlCl3-EtMeImCl,' G. R. Stafford (NIST), O. E. Kongstein (Norwegian University of Science and Technolog) and E. Sandnes (The Norwegian University of Science and Technology).

Aluminum is usually plated by Ion Vapor Deposition (IVD).  

RE: aluminum plating?

I know you asked about electroplate, but you can also do IVD aluminum. We did some experimental work with the RSA high temperature aluminum alloys (8% Fe) and they did not anodize well. Made it a lot better by IVD coating with pure aluminum and then anodizing. Never made it into production, however due to various issues.

RE: aluminum plating?

Swall

As far as I know pure aluminum doesn't need anodizing for corrosion protection. This is the whole idea of alclad aluminum sheets for airplane wing and body sheets structures (such as 2024-T3 alclad sheets). Pure aluminum similar to 18-8 stainless steel forms a natural protective oxide.

RE: aluminum plating?

Israelkk--I fully agree with you. I raised the same question at the time. It was a paradigm thing--"we've always anodized, so we have to find a way to anodize this new material". I thought it was totally silly.

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