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February 2006 News The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) granted Registration No. 3,047,933 to ETL on January 24, 2006. 14 US Patents, as well as foreign patents cover these proprietary processes owned by ETL. HydroJet is a “hydrodynamic” process for use in a continuous electrochemical treating line for treating at least one surface of a continuous flat web moving through an electrolytic solution contained within a tank. This process utilizes force hydraulics to inject high concentration electrolyte into the plating “gap” of a continuous reel-to-reel coil plating line, to assure the highest rate of deposition. HydroJet also strips off the “Composite Barrier Layer” (CBL) at the sheet metal surface, which is made up of hydrogen bubbles, a thermal heat zone and a micro-ion depletion area. The CBL naturally impedes the rate of plating (or the rate of any other electrochemical process). Therefore, its continual removal enhances the rate of deposition, thereby assuring the highest efficiency possible. ETL’s licensed partners have used these processes to produce over 100 million pounds of commercially acceptable plated sheet metal products such as copper plated sheet, nickel plated sheet, nickel-chromium plated sheet, brass plated sheet as well as tin plated and tin-silver alloy plated sheet metal. November
2004 News Philadelphia, PA, ( November 12, 2004)— Electroplating Technologies Ltd. (ETL) announced today that it has recently been awarded US Patent No. 6,800,186 B1 with an issue date of October 5, 2004. This is the 12th US patent awarded and assigned to ETL. This most recent ETL patent describes the electrochemical processing of a continuous strip in an electrolytic processing bath using either a thin flexible or resilient dielectric wiping blade or an open web plastic mesh to wipe the bubbles of gas from the surface of the strip while also removing a surface layer of partially depleted electrolytic solution, thereby replacing the depleted solution with fresh solution and stabilizing the strip between the support rolls. ETL has used this now patented technique in its HydroJet® sheet and/or strip coil plating processes. October
2004 News Philadelphia, PA, (October 7, 2004)— Electroplating Technologies Ltd. (ETL) announced today that it has recently been awarded US Patent No. 6,780,302 B2 with an issue date of August 24, 2004. The patent describes a process for use in a continuous electrochemical treating line for treating at least one surface of a continuous web moving through an electrolytic solution contained within a tank. ETL has named the process HydroJet®. The process features very close anode to cathode distances, e.g. a "plating gap" of 3mm (1/8"), or less. Moreover, the process injects high concentration electrolyte into the plating gap to assure the highest rate of deposition. Furthermore the hydraulic stream impacts the surface of the sheet and/or strip material being plated. This Jet impacting the strip removes the "Composite Barrier LayerSM" (CBLSM) made up of hydrogen bubbles, a thermal heat zone and a micro-ion depletion area. The CBL naturally impedes the rate of plating (or any other electrochemical process). Therefore its continual removal enhances the rate of deposition thereby assuring the highest efficiency possible. The HydroJet process is easily accomplish in a retrofitting situation. The switching is minimally invasive, as each plating cell can be converted over a long weekend, thus requiring no major productivity outage. Payback periods for the conversions are typically six months or less. Just imagine "a guaranteed 100% capacity improvement for a very low capital expenditure!" November
2003 News Philadelphia (November 10, 2003) -- James L Forand, Chief Executive Officer of Electroplating Technologies Ltd. (ETL) announced today that his company has been granted Brazilian Patent No. PI 9510632-4 related to High Speed Plating. ETL’s technology is fully developed for ultra high speed, high efficiency electroplating of continuously processed flat rolled sheet and strip materials, in coil form. The first Brazilian Company to utilize the technology, under license, was Armco do Brazil, SA. (ABSA). ABSA began pilot line work in the late 1990’s to refine the technology on its copper plating line. Such line has historically been used to produce copper plated sheet steel for the manufacture of double-walled, braze-welded tubing for automotive brake lines. ABSA may expand the use of the technology along with ETL’s newer HydroJet™ technology to its zinc plating and nickel plating operations in the coming years. ABSA produces a variety of plated sheet metal products for the automotive, household appliances and electronic box cover applications, like computer cases and VCR box covers and the like. It should be noted that ABSA is the largest producer of specialty plated sheet metal products in Brazil. The first licensee of the technology in the USA was Apollo Metals Ltd. of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Apollo has used the technology for several years in the production of copper plated, brass plated, nickel-plated and nickel-chromium plated. Such plated products are used widely in the automotive, appliance and a wide variety of household products. Precision Plating Company, Inc. (PPC) became the first Electronic Materials Group (EMG) industry licensee in the world in 2002 for ETL’s HydroJet technology. PPC is a prominent plater in the field of electronic materials. The company has long been recognized for its leadership in developing and implementing state-of-the-art-electroplating technology. PPC has its own design, build and supply capability, which includes fabrication of both polymer and metallic plating components. The company builds its own plating machines and does fabricating work for others in the industry. For information on ETL, and HydroJet® contact: James
L. Forand, President & CEO September
2002 News Belmonti announced that this most recent development was made in partnership with Electroplating Technologies, Ltd. (ETL), an independent R&D Company known for its proprietary and patented ElectroJet® and HydroJet™ technologies. Belmonti said "ETL’s ElectroJet process is a close proximity hydromechanical plating process, while HydroJet is a close proximity hydrodynamic plating process." He added, "we were interested in many of the features and benefits of each of these new technologies, but felt that HydroJet was more suitable for electronic materials. Belmonti went on to say, "We worked closely with ETL over the past eight months to refine the mechanics of the HydroJet process. We felt that HydroJet would be well suited for electronic materials, which have very tight specifications required by IT hardware users. Plated components used for networking, computer hardware, telecommunications systems and automotive electronic control devices require almost perfect coating profiles and surface quality". Belmonti further said, "We worked with ETL to perfect the HydroJet process and hardware to custom-fit our plating machines. We were able to come up with a means of injecting high metallic ion-concentrated electrolyte into the ‘plating gap’ between the soluble anodes and cathode copper alloy strip being continuously electroplated, making it faster and more efficient than conventional plating processes". "The plating gap is only about 3 mm between the soluble anodes and the moving copper alloy strip," said Belmonti, "and requires constant electrolyte flow with very specific fluid mechanics in order to control coating profile and surface quality of the plated product". Belmonti went on to say "the results we’ve experienced with HydroJet are outstanding. We’ve essentially doubled the capacity of our plating operations by utilizing this custom-tailored technology in PPC’s Chicago facilities. This is a major step forward in our constant effort to better satisfy our customer needs. We have always prided ourselves in implementing the latest applicable technology into our plating machines to assure our ability to supply the highest quality electroplated products to our customers". Belmonti continued to say, "the expanded capacity will enable us to expand our markets. We see numerous applications for both Nickel Plated and Tin Plated strip products, which make up the backbone of electronic materials". Belmonti added, "while downstream selective plating operations are performed to apply precious metals such as gold, silver and palladium for numerous customer product applications, the bottleneck until now has always been the deposition rates of nickel and tin. Now PPC has overcome this obstacle with the implementation of HydroJet". Finally Belmonti offered, "as we move further into the new millennium, our customers can be assured that Precision Plating Company will always be looking for and refining new technology to provide the highest quality plated strip materials to all our customers". For more information contact: For information
on ETL contact: June 2002 News ETL is in a position [through a newly formed business alliance] to offer complete conceptual design as well as detailed engineering design, ultra-high efficiency plating technology and patent rights along with all hardware components, including complete reel-to-reel electroplating machines for sheet and strip materials, in coil form. Thus ETL can confidently offer the "complete package", at more than competitive prices, for all types of electroplating lines including those with horizontal passline, vertical up-and-down passline, or "on-edge" passline. This includes complete lines for ferrous and non-ferrous substrate sheet & strip materials, in coil form. ETL can now offer its customer-licensees the technology, hardware and intellectual property rights for zinc plating lines, nickel-zinc plating lines, tin plating lines, nickel plating lines, Ni-Cr plating lines, copper plating lines, brass plating lines and various alloy plating lines for both ferrous and non-ferrous substrate materials. We are excited about this, because we know our customers and prospective licensees can now purchase the best technology and hardware while being assured of receiving the "best value" worldwide for the "complete package". Sincerely yours, James L Forand January 1998 News Apollo licenses new plating technology American Metal Market magazine, Jan 26, 1998 PITTSBURGH - Apollo Metals Ltd., Bethlehem, Pa.. and its research and development partner company Electroplating Technologies Ltd. have licensed their newly developed, high-efficiency, reel-to-reel Electrojet® plating technology to Armco do Brasil S.A., Sao Paulo. Armco do Brasil will apply the Electrojet technology to a dual purpose line that will produce both copper-plated and zinc-plated sheet steel in alternating production campaigns. The line features a dual payoff and take-up terminal equipment setup which simultaneously feeds two side-by-side cold-rolled steel strips through a series of horizontal electroplating tanks. The maximum single strip width is about 18 inches (450 mm). The line has a nominal capacity of about 13,000 metric tons per year. Apollo Metals' president and chief executive officer, David Kropp, said the conversion to the Electrojet system. which should be completed during the second quarter, is expected to increase the line's capacity significantly. He said the Electrojet technology provides faster deposition rates at a given energy input by continuously sweeping away the inherent "barrier layer" associated with all electrochemical processes, thereby dramatically increasing plating efficiency. COPYRIGHT 1998 Cahners Publishing Company COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group Read what major publications are saying about ETL
9/27/02 "Precision Plating Company, Inc. Adopts Faster, More Efficient Plating Technology"
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