A review of electroplating nickel bath life extension, nickel recovery & copper recovery from nickel baths

The EPA Common Sense Initiative (CSI) is a cooperative effort of government, industry, environmental, and other stakeholder groups to find cleaner, cheaper, smarter approaches to environmental management in industrial sectors. The purpose of the project is to assist hard chrome metal platers reduce plating tank emissions to comply cost-effectively with, or exceed, EPA's Chromium Emissions MACT Standard. The major objective of this project was to investigate the efficacy of wetting-agent-type mist suppressants to reduce worker exposure and hexavalent chromium emissions from a hard-chromium plating tank. Further emission testing to meet the chromium MACT standard has been conducted to determine an acceptable surface tension number for regulatory use. Hard chromium platers may be able to report surface tension numbers much like that of decorative chromium, if and when regulatory change is implemented.