Exterior Automotive
MacDermid Enthone Automotive Solutions for chassis offer reliability and efficiency for unsurpassed corrosion performance and wear resistance. Our decorative fashion finishes, electroless nickel, hard chrome, and zinc/zinc alloy coatings improve aesthetics and deliver unrivaled corrosion protection to extend product life on components including body trim, grills, mirrors, door strikers and latches and aluminum wheels.
Our ELV and REACh compliant systems enhance quality and extend product life. Exclusive Enthone ELV compliant systems optimize quality, increase durability and extend life, while meeting stringent OEM industry standards. MacDermid Enthone coatings create value throughout the entire supply chain by decreasing metal and chemical consumption, increasing productivity and reducing process steps while helping OEMs meet objectives from fuel efficiency to corrosion protection.
Body Trim, Grills and Mirrors
Plating on Plastic
Most automotive body trim, grills and mirrors are made from plastic substrates such as ABS and ABS alloys. To achieve the desired bright / satin chromium finish usually applied to these components they first need to be metallized. This is achieved by etching the surface (to provide a tough bond) and coating the roughened surface with traces of a precious metal. This precious metal provides the 'seeds' for deposits of a thin layer of nickel or copper by electroless deposition.
Chromium-free etching
Today, more and more applicators are using MacDermid Enthone's ZERO chromium evolve plating on plastic system.
Traditionally mass production of plated plastics could only be carried out using hexavalent chromium and bioaccumalative perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS). This type of processing can be carried out in either a traditional (MacuPlex), direct (Udique) or short cycle (Infinity).
Plating with trivalent chromium
Today decorative chromium plating is carried out from a solution based on trivalent chromium
salts. This technology is both hexavalent chromium and PFOS-free. Trivalent chromium also allows darker colors to be plated. This provides the design engineer the ability to specify new finishes.
Strikers and Door Latches
Surface treatments help to increase the lifespan of ferrous components, improving the perception of quality and ultimate end-user experience. Specifying the correct protection helps to minimize warranty costs and mitigate the risk of field failure – ultimately, maintaining consistent and reliable performance.
The importance of zinc
Zinc and zinc alloys are used throughout the automotive industry to provide cost-effective, high performance coatings – with minimal change in dimensional tolerances. Together with trivalent chromium passivates and sealers, zinc-based systems offer excellent corrosion resistance for all steel fasteners, thanks to zinc’s electronegative properties to iron.
Our range of anti-corrosion coatings is specified and approved by leading automotive companies worldwide, such as Ford, GM, Renault and VW, to help protect cars in all elements.
Aluminum Wheels
Nickel/chromium plating of aluminum wheels is a complex and highly skilled procedure. The technology
involved in both the pretreatment and plating must be robust and able to deliver consistent STEP results and bright covering power.
When specified as original equipment on a new vehicle, wheels will be plated to service condition 5 or even more stringent requirements, using multilayer nickel and microporous nickel and chromium. This ensures that the customer receives aluminum wheels that not only look spectacular in the show room, but continue to look good after many miles of driving.
The correct pre-treatment is critical to this success. At MacDermid Enthone our systems have been employed globally for many decades to achieve the best adhesion and subsequent decorative chromium plating to meet all automotive specifications.
