Use of fume suppressants in hard chromium baths - Quality testing

The EPA Common Sense Initiative (CSI) is a cooperative effort of government , industry, environmental and other stakeholder groups to find "cleaner, ch eaper, smarter" approaches to environmental management in industrial sector s. The purpose of the project is to help hard chromium metal platers reduce plating tank emissions in order to comply with, in a cost effective manner , or exceed, EPA's Chromium Emissions MACT Standard. The major objective of this project was to assess and evaluate pitting in hard chromium plating w hen using wetting-agent-type fume suppressants, Bench-scale testing, follow ed by full-scale production testing, permitted investigation of the effects of various operational parameters, such as plating time and current densit y, on whether pitting would occur or be aggravated in the presence of fume suppressants on various base metals. Evaluation of various pre-treatments w ere also tested to determine the potential for quality problems when using fume suppressants.