Electroless nickel deposits - Obtaining and properties

Electroless nickel plating is a process for depositing a nickel alloy from an aqueous solution, without the use of an electric current. It is therefore fundamentally different from electrolytic nickel plating, which uses a direct current source to reduce the nickel ions in the solution to nickel metal, which is deposited on the substrate.

This is a chemical process that reduces nickel ions to nickel metal.

The most commonly used reducing agent is sodium hypophosphite. Sodium borohydride or dimethylamine borane may also be used (but less frequently). As hypophosphite is used in over 99% of cases, we will refer to this reducing agent throughout this article.

It is not our intention here to study in detail the various electroless nickel plating processes that exist, the principle of which we will simply recall, but rather to examine some of the specific properties of electroless nickel, such as uniformity of thickness, hardness, corrosion resistance and magnetism, which have led to its use in many and varied industries.

These applications will be presented in the following article .