by Blair Vandivier
President and CEO, Asterion, LLC

Is there a better way to provide a high corrosion resistant finish that is not an expensive alloy process?

Answer: If a high corrosion resistant finish provided 400+ hours to first white corrosion product and 700+ hours to red corrosion, until now, the answer was NO. Alloy finishes with passivate and seals that were complex and difficult to control were the only choice to achieve 400+ hours to first white corrosion product and 700+ hours to red corrosion. Traditional zinc plating just could not meet these requirements. As a result, finishers and their customers could only look to zinc alloy systems to provide high corrosion resistant attributes. The challenges associated with these processes were just a cost of doing business.

Today, however, the short answer is an emphatic NO. Asterion’s UltraPlus™ process provides corrosion protection that easily exceeds zinc nickel performance. Testing by independent laboratories has verified in excess of 1200 hours neutral salt spray testing to ANY observable white corrosion product. Any means  absolutely none, nada, not any white corrosion product.

This is incredible performance from a traditional zinc plated deposit with a passivate and seal which requires no special equipment. There is no need for expensive and time consuming carbonate removal. A finisher does not need to purchase expensive testing equipment to verify the content of the alloy. There are no highly chelated plating solutions which will wreak havoc on waste treatment. The UltraPlus process does not need special bussing and rectifiers. There is no highly silicated seal to leave your plating area looking like a scene from the movie “Frozen”. Just traditional zinc plating equipment.

Sound interesting? Let us process sample parts for you. There is nothing to lose other than the headaches and costs of alloy plating.  Contact us to see what the UltraPlus process can do for you.