Department of Chemical and Galvanic Surface Technology

Welcome to the Chemical and Galvanic Surface Engineering Department.

Our department primarily researches surface treatments and coatings using wet chemical processes. These include chemical and electrochemical metal deposition, anodic, plasma chemical and chemical conversion coatings.

The department includes the working groups Cathodic Processes and Anodic Surface Technology and comprises 7 scientific and 5 technical staff (as of 12/17).

Below you will find a selection of our most important research topics.

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Electrolyte development for electrochemical processes (electrochemical, anodic and plasma anodic processes)

Influence of organic additives on the discharge behaviour during plasma anodic oxidation of a magnesium alloy

Structure/property relationships for electrochemical and anodic/plasma anodic coatings

The microstructure (grain size, residual stresses, texture) of electrochemical nickel coatings can be variably adjusted by additives (brighteners, hardening additives, relaxers) (picture above: lamellar structure; picture below: columnar structure). In this way, the mechanical properties can be specifically adjusted (picture on the right).

Development of impedance spectroscopic analysis methods

Adsorption of a brightener on a nickel surface. The change in the double layer capacity at higher concentrations is clearly visible. This method can be used to effectively determine the working range and the mode of action of brighteners.

Influence of heat treatment on Ni/P coatings

Hardness catalogue

In the IGF project (AiF no.: 16736BR/1), the microstructure and property development of chemically deposited and heat-treated NiP coatings based on lead- and cadmium-free electrolyte systems was investigated. Based on representative, industrially applied electrolytes, low-, mid- and high-phos coatings were investigated.

Interactive wear catalogue

Galvanik Forschungsthema 4 Interaktiver Verschleißkatalog

In the IGF project (AiF no.: 20747 BR/1), various wear tests were carried out with industrially produced low-, mid- and high-phos coatings. An interactive wear catalogue was created from the respective test-dependent characteristic values. Since real wear stresses are made up of proportions of different types of wear, the user of the wear model can weight the types of wear that are individually relevant for his application on a percentage basis and receives the optimised heat treatment parameters and the phosphorus content.

You will find our technical equipment sorted by laboratory areas under the corresponding tab on this page.

We offer the following services as standard.

Contact us if you would like us to support you in special tasks!

Materials testing