High-Adhesion Plating on ABS Resin using High-Power UV Irradiation

抄録

Traditionally, manufacturers perform etching with chromic acid to adhere a plating film to acrylonitrile­butadiene­styren（eABS）resin, which is widely used as a material in automobiles and consumer electronics. However, recent environmental regulations have raised the importance of establishing a novel chromium-free pre-treatment method. We have been investigating improvement of the adhesion of plating films using an alternative method for chromic acid etching, specifically by modifying the ABS resin surface using UV irradiation from a low-pressure mercury lamp. However, that process requires that ABS resin be irradiated for more than one minute, which impedes productivity. To overcome this difficulty, we conducted experiments using a high-powered UV lamp, which markedly reduced the UV-irradiation processing time and produced adhesion strength comparable to that obtained using a conventional method with the low-pressure mercury lamp. A similar reforming effect is obtainable even with increased irradiation distance, making it applicable to three-dimensional molded articles.