Cost Reduction Ideas
Use an alternative metal
As of June 2008, Palladium is trading on the spot market for about 50% of the cost of gold. In most anti-corrosion, electrical conductivity applications, palladium will serve as a drop-in replacement. Palladium is a white-colored metal, which has caused a lot of reluctance, in our experience, on the part of customers to elect to substitute it for gold. Market confusion is possible. However for new applications where no color precedent is established, palladium would be a logical and cost savings alternative to gold. In addition, palladium has twice the Knoop hardness of cobalt hardened gold (260 to 300 knoop versus 200 knoop, max. Click here to link to our explanation of knoop hardness.) So you will receive increased wear resistance as an additional benefit.
Another “alternative metal” is 14K gold.
For several years now there has been a desire for a super-hard, increased life-span gold plate - a sort of a “holy grail” for gold plating. Whereas 24K soft gold (non-cobalt or nickel hardened, MIL-G-45204 type III and ASTM B488 type 3) has a hardness of 90 knoop, or less; and cobalt or nickel hardened gold (Types 1 and 2 of G-45205 and B488) has a hardness of 200 knoop, or less; the “super hard” gold that was dreamed of would have a Knoop hardness of 400 (max). (This is the same hardness of palladium).
There was such a product introduced by the chemistry vendors several years ago, but it didn’t work so well. It was an alloy of gold, copper and tin. There were a couple of problems with it. Being a tri-alloy, it was very hard to control the relative concentrations on the final deposit. The bath chemistry was super-sensitive to just about every parameter (temp, pH, concentrations, power settings, phase of the moon, etc.) and it was impractically difficult to hold the 3 metal components in proper relative concentration in the final deposit. The result was wildly variable hardness results. The other problem was wildly variable color: The fluctuating copper content would move the color from gold yellow to copper red, load by load.
More recently, a new gold plating chemistry has been introduced to the market that does produce an honest 400 Knoop hardness. It also has the potential to produce reduced gold plating costs. Its simplicity itself: It is cobalt hardened gold. No other metals are involved. However, the cobalt content is increased from 0.03% to 42%. No typo there. This is a 48/52 cobalt/gold alloy. That’s 14K gold with a cobalt alloy. The cost savings is in the reduction in the amount of gold used. HOWEVER, there is a potential cost offset in that this product deposits extremely slowly: about 16x slower than traditional 24K hard gold. HOWEVER, the assumption that identical thicknesses of 24K and 14K would be required is not a good assumption.
The actual layer by layer composition that is optimized (mechanically and economically) for your needs would be determined by experimentation. We are happy to assist with this. We would recommend starting with increasing the thickness of EN, which itself is harder than 200 knoop hard gold, and then decreasing the thickness of gold. That would offset the increased plating time involved in the 14K product. And of course, you are plating about ½ the gold to begin with because this product is 48% cobalt, which trades at a fraction of the cost of gold. Or put 14K gold on top of palladium… Note also that the 14K product, while absolutely color stable, is a whiter shade of gold than 24K. The color is handsome in its’ own right; but different. It would also be feasible to plate a very thin (cheap) layer of 24K on top, if color differentiation was objectionable.
Creativity is the name of the game today. We can not continue to do things in old ways with the steadily increasing competition for resources. At ProPlate®, we’re ready and willing to be innovative and to work with you to develop innovative plating solutions for your applications.