Cirrus Materials Science has developed a breakthrough in a surface engineering technique produces pure white anodised surfaces on aluminium alloys. In the evolving world of materials science and new surface engineering techniques that are constantly extending the boundaries of what is possible. This unprecedented development marks an industry first and challenges long-held industry beliefs about creating reliable white anodising on aluminium.

As the second most widely used metal group worldwide, light metals including aluminium, titanium, and magnesium alloys are essential to many industries and applications. All light metals require coatings to provide significant functional properties, especially corrosion resistance, however, many current coatings solutions are neither cost effective nor environmentally friendly. Cirrus patented Hybrid™ coating technology is an extremely thin, low cost alternative that offers excellent corrosion resistance along with superior electrical and mechanical performance. Cirrus Hybrid™ coatings and their production process are environmentally friendly, with no toxic consumables or by products such as Cr6+, Cd. Hybrid™ coating technology has a great compatibility with existing plating processes including Ni, Cu, Zn-Ni, Ag, Au, which offers wide commercial applications and this paper introduces the fundamentals of this new coating technology.

The use of ceramic nano-powders to create composite coatings is well known but is neither simple to industrialize nor environmentally friendly. Patented Cirrus Dopant™ technology from Cirrus Materials Science offers the performance advantages of nano-composite coatings without the implementation and process drawbacks. Cirrus Dopant™ technology is applicable to commercial baths for a large variety of electrolytic and electroless deposited coatings including Ni, Ni-P, Ni-B, Co-P, Au, Ag, Sn, and Zn-Ni. Successful application of the technology simply requires optimization of the specialized Dopant™ to the bath. This paper discusses the process and results for nano-doping commercially important coating baths.

This paper describes a low cost alternative coating technology for light metals that electrodeposits an engineered thin-film coating which bonds tightly to the substrate and provides excellent corrosion and wear resistance along with superior electrical and thermal performance. As a new process, this technology offers a stable, low-cost option to manufacturers and applicators seeking to improve and extend their use of light metal substrates.