JPS6148596A - Continuous electroplating apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To remove completely oxygen generated from insoluble anodes during plating when a traveling steel strip is plated in a plating chamber having the anodes placed parallel to each other as the upper and lower walls, by forming freely expandable and shrinkable flow guides as the side walls of the plating chamber and leaving gaps between the guides and the anodes. CONSTITUTION:A plating chamber is composed of upper and lower insoluble anodes 2, 2 as the upper and lower walls and flow guides 10, 10 as the side walls, and small gaps 11 are left between the guides 10, 10 and the anodes 2, 2. The guides 10, 10 are expanded by feeding compressed air and are shrunk by exhausting the air. A steel strip 1 is moved in the direction of an arrow, and a plating soln. is countercurrently fed from upper and lower blowing nozzles 7, 7. Though gaseous oxygen is generated from the anodes 2, 2 while a plating reaction proceeds, the oxygen is exhausted together with the plating soln. from the inlet 5 of the plating chamber or the gaps 11, so defective plating or partial unplating due to gaseous oxygen is prevented.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Field of Application] The present invention relates to a continuous electroplating apparatus for electroplating a continuously moving copper strip.

[Prior Art] As an apparatus for continuously electroplating a copper strip at high speed, a system as shown in FIGS. 5 and 6 has been known. That is, a plating bath 4 is formed from the upper and lower insoluble anodes 2.2, which are wider than the width of the steel strip 1, and the side plates 3, 3 made of an insulating material, and the steel strip 1 is fed through the inlet 5. The plating solution is applied to the steel strip 1 from the plating solution blowout nozzle 7.7 provided at the outlet 6.
It is designed to be sent in a countercurrent to the flow and circulated.

In such conventional continuous electroplating equipment, the steel strip 1
It has a completely sealed structure except for the inlet 5 and outlet 6,
Since the plating solution flow path is tubular with a rectangular cross section,
Even when the plating solution is blown out at high speed, a uniform flow can be obtained in the width direction, and the flow direction is also constant. However, in such a conventional device, since the insoluble anode 2 is used, the anode reaction is an oxygen generation reaction, and a large amount of oxygen gas is generated. Oxygen gas stays in the plating tank 4 by circulating the plating solution, so one side of the copper strip and two sides of the anode are covered with an oxygen gas layer, which may make it impossible to conduct electricity or result in partially unplated or defective plating. There were some problems. In order to remove the generated oxygen gas, it is necessary to increase the flow rate of the plating solution or to increase the distance between the steel strip 1 and the anode 2. In the former case, as the flow rate of the plating solution increases, The number of facilities increases, and in the latter case, this causes an increase in electricity costs.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] The present invention aims to rapidly remove oxygen gas generated by an insoluble electrode to prevent non-plating or defective plating, and to enable high current density plating. be.

[Means for Solving the Problems] The continuous electroplating method of the present invention moves steel strips corresponding to the width of the steel strip into a plating bath with open side walls between anodes arranged in parallel. It has a configuration in which a flow guide with a length of 1q is provided, and a gap is formed between the upper and lower surfaces of the flow guy 1 to the entire length of the anode, passing through the inside and outside of the tank.

[Effect: Therefore, between the upper and lower surfaces of the flow guide and the anode 1
The plating solution can be allowed to overflow, and oxygen gas can be discharged by the overflow of the plating solution.

[Example] Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

As shown in FIGS. 1 to 3, the present invention uses an open type plating tank 4' from which the side plates 3, 3 of the plating tank 4 shown in FIGS. 5 and 6 have been removed. Inside the plating tank 4', compressed air is supplied and discharged from an air supply pipe 9, which is moved from the outside side of the tank via a rod 8 according to the width of the steel strip 1. Flow guide 1 that can expand and contract
0°10 and the flow guide 10.10
The upper and lower surfaces of the anodes 2.2 are provided with a series of step recesses so as to form a required gap 11 between them and the entire length of the anodes 2.2, and a seal portion 10a is provided at the end of each flow guide 10 on the side of the blow-off nozzle 7.
The seal portion 10a is configured to be able to adjust the opening width of the blow-off nozzle 7 by slidingly contacting the opening of the blow-off nozzle 7, while a support member inlet is provided at the end of the inlet 5 side of each flow guide 10. Support member 1 installed at a position appropriately spaced from 5
2.12 to be slidably supported.

Both ends of the flow guide 10, that is, the seal portion 10a and the support portion 10b, are formed of an insulating material such as rubber, rubber on the edge of the core metal, or vinyl on the edge of the core metal,
The size is such that when air is supplied from the air supply pipe 9, it expands and the seal portion 10a comes into pressure contact with the nozzle 7.7, and part of the sabot 1 iob comes into pressure contact with the support member 12°12. Further, the middle portion of the flow guide 10, ie, the portion corresponding to the anode 2.2, is formed of a suitable insulating material.

In the above configuration, by operating the rod 8, the work is performed with the flow guides io, io corresponding to the width position of the steel strip 1, as shown in FIG.

At this time, the position adjustment is performed for the seal part 10a and the support part 1.
0b is contracted, and after positioning, it is expanded to seal the seal portion 10a between the nozzles 7 and 7, and between the sabots 1 to 10b.
are pressed against the support members 12 and 12, respectively.

The steel strip 1 is run from the inlet 5 to the outlet 6 in FIG.
When a plating solution is supplied toward the inlet 5, oxygen gas is generated in the plating tank 4' due to an anode reaction. A part of the generated oxygen gas is discharged from the inlet 5 along with the plating solution, while the oxygen gas that was about to stay in the plating M4' is formed between the upper F surface of the flow guide 10.10 and the anodes 2, 2. It is discharged from the tank together with the plating solution through the gap 11. At this time, by selecting the gap 11 to be small, the flow velocity of the plating solution becomes higher than that discharged from the inlet 5, and the effect of diffusing the plating solution is effectively exhibited.

In the plating work, when the width of the steel strip 1 is wide,
The plating solution is supplied with the opening width of the blow-off nozzle 7 being the full width. On the other hand, when the width of the steel strip 1 is narrow, as shown in FIG. The plating solution should be supplied with a suitable opening width.

At this time, by ensuring that the seal portion 10a of the flow kite 10.10 is in contact with the opening of the blow-off nozzle 7, there is no scattering of the plating solution.

The adjustment of the opening width of the blowout nozzle luer by the seal portion 10a is performed simultaneously with the movement of the support portion 10b when the entire flow guide 10 is positioned by operating the rod 8.

The rod may be operated using any drive method such as a one-way screw method or a cylinder method.

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the continuous electroplating apparatus of the present invention, in a plating tank with an open side wall between the anodes arranged in parallel, a steel strip is placed in a plating bath according to the width position of the steel strip. Since a movable flow guide is provided and a gap is provided between the upper and lower surfaces of the flow guide and the entire length of the anode, oxygen gas can be quickly removed from the gap. Not plated!
It has excellent effects such as being able to prevent the occurrence of plating and defective plating.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a schematic cutaway side view of continuous electroplating g4 of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a view taken along the ■-■ arrow in Fig. 1, and Fig. 3 is a view taken along the -■ arrow in Fig. 1. 4 is a view taken along the ■-■ arrow in FIG. 1 and shows a state different from that in FIG. 3, FIG. 5 is a schematic cutaway side view of the conventional device, and FIG. This is a perspective view. 1 is a steel strip, 2 is an anode, 4' is a plating tank, 9 is an air supply pipe, 10 is a flow guide, and 11 is a gap. Patent application Hitoshi Kawajima Harima Heavy Industries Co., Ltd.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1) A flow guide that can move according to the width of the steel strip is installed in a plating tank with open side walls between the anodes arranged in parallel, and the upper and lower surfaces of the flow guide A continuous electroplating device characterized by forming a gap between the entire length of the anode and penetrating the inside and outside of the tank.