Platinum Coated Titanium Anodes

Special chemical & physical properties like high corrosion resistance, thermal conductivity and catalytic nature, platinum is widely used as electrodes in metal finishing industries. Being a very expensive metal, instead of using solid form, platinum is deposited on the surface of titanium or niobium or tantalum, occasionally on molybdenum by micron level layer. Electrodes [Anodes or Cathodes] are available with hanging hook, frame or band; in the form of sheet, mesh, pipe, wire, rod and custom built. Platinised titanium anode is used in electrolytes having no fluoride. Platinised niobium anodes are used in electrolytes having fluoride, where we need better conduction (its conductivity is three times of titanium) & also it is suitable for Sulphuric acid chromium plating bath operated at current density greater than 75A / dm².
Common Laboratory Beaker anodes are used for Laboratory Plating tests, small batch plating, electrochemical production of organic, inorganic and many other compounds. The common beakers are available in the sizes of 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 & 5.0 liters by volume. Standard Platinized Titanium Anodes [PTA] and Platinized Niobium Anodes [PNA] are available for said glass beakers. Anodes are available in the form of expanded mesh with hook, strips with hook and tube for some special applications. Platinised anodes are available with the standard platinum plating layer thickness of 2.5 micron. Plating thick can be increased up to 20 micron depending to the customer’s requirement. PTA anodes are used for the production of chlorates and perchlorate and in plating bath as insoluble anodes. 

Platinised titanium, niobium and tantalum anodes are having the advantages of Low weight because of low surace area due to the high current density - good current resistance; Long life operation - maintenance free; Economical - due to low platinum requirements; High dimensional stability and low resistance; highly suitable as auxiliary anodes of complex geometrical shapes.

Few of its applications are…

• Metal finishing
• Beaker anodes
• Electroforming
• Cathodic protection
• Electrochemical sensing
• Electro winning
• Metal refining
• Electrolytic regeneration of chromic acid
• Electroplating for precious and base metals
• Electrolytic production of sodium hypochlorite
• Electro synthesis of Inorganic and organic chemicals
• Especially production of perchlorates

Visit our site www.titanium.com.sg to know more about platinized titanium, MMO Anodes and titanium materials.

Analyzing Metals - Gold

The livelihood of businesses that buy and recycle gold, such as jewelry stores and pawn shops, depends in part on being able to identify fake gold and to determine the accurate karat (K) weight of gold jewelry. With the volatility and high price of gold, failing to detect just a small variation in composition can be an expensive mistake. Even the seemingly simple task of distinguishing between gold plating and solid gold can be a challenge as counterfeiters become more adept.

Gold plated means that the jewelry is made with a layer of gold on the surface over another type of metal underneath. The most common identifying marks on gold plate are HGE (gold electroplate) and RGP (rolled gold plate), but not all gold-plated jewelry has such a stamp. High-quality gold plate can be thick enough to pass nitric acid scratch test, which only tests the surface layer. A deeper cut to the piece may yield more information about its content but will also damage it.

Other verification methods include weighing the jewelry in question against a known gold piece, or submerging the piece in water and measuring the displacement. Gold jewelry can be examined with a loupe to check for different colors under worn areas. Many jewelers also test with a strong magnet, as real gold isn’t magnetic.

Jewelers and pawn brokers that fail to verify the gold that comes into their shops using at least a couple of methods will fall prey to increasingly sophisticated counterfeiters who know how to get around these tests. Recent news stories describe scams involving jewelry made with non-magnetic metals that mimic gold, fakes plated with enough gold so as to appear to be all gold, or gold-plated or copper counterfeits stamped 14K or 18K.

“The fakes are getting better,” says one pawn shop owner. “They’re beating the magnet test, the weight test. Nowadays, gold needs to be tested several ways, including scratch testing or cutting into the metal, even if it means ruining the piece. Unfortunately, most of my customers intend to reclaim their jewelry and don’t want it damaged.”

To be absolutely certain of the composition of gold and other precious metals, many businesses are now turning to X-ray fluorescence (XRF) technology.  XRF analyzers provide a fast, accurate, and most importantly, a nondestructive method to test the purity and composition of all precious metals. XRF quickly provides the exact karat weight and percentages of all elements within an item – easily identifying non-standard, under-karated, and even advanced counterfeit material that acid testing is incapable of differentiating.  What’s more, some XRF instruments feature technology that can identify gold-plated items that, undetected, could adversely affect the profitability of your business. This functionality not only protects your interests but those of your clients, who can see for themselves the exact percentage of pure gold in their jewelry.

XRF analysis also can work in tandem with traditional testing to identify more heavily gold-plated items. When readings taken with an XRF analyzer on four or five different areas on a piece show differing results, this can be an indication that the item is heavily plated and further testing is warranted.  This would mean filing or drilling into the item to expose material beneath the surface layer.

Visit our website www.titanium.com.sg for more info about titanium metals, MMO Anodes and Platinum coated titanium anodes.

Titanium metal composition testing 

Why Titanium metal turns blue after wire-cut process?

At Titan Engineering - Singapore, we do a fair amount of titanium metal plates by wire-cut machine and the appearance is important to all our customers. It is usual that the surface will become blue in color after wire-cut machining. The bluing does not go very deep into the material and can be mostly removed by polishing with a scrub pad. Polishing does cause the recast layer to go a little deeper but not deep enough to affect the material.

Wire-cut bluing of titanium is often mistaken for thermal damage, but the coloration you sometimes see at the edges of a wire-cut titanium surface is actually nothing but anodic oxidation created by the field of electrical current around the wire electrode during wire cutting. This ionized field produces a thin, and transparent oxide film on the top and bottom surfaces adjacent to the wire path. This oxide can be in the atomic range to several hundred nano meters thick. The colors produced in this manner have no pigments, dies or chemicals in them and are known as interference colors.

Interference colors are created when light strikes an oxidized surface. Part of the light is reflected and part of it passes through the oxide film to be reflected off the metal surface beneath it. As the light bounces back and passes through the oxide layer, it is slowed or interfered with, hence its name. This interference creates a color similar to the way a prism bends white light and breaks it into colors depending upon the angle. Every color in the rainbow can be achieved by this effect with the thickness of the oxide film (amount of interference) determining the color. Like anodizing, voltages, current density, water chemistry and pH can all affect the colors produced. The visible oxide colors that WEDM current typically generates are mostly in the blue and red spectrums, being a definite blue along the wire path and often fading to a tinge of red on the outer edges of the discoloration.

Being aware of all this may sound rather obscure, but we actually had to learn about this out of necessity. In a galaxy far, far away, in another lifetime when we had our shop (pre-AC generators and AE technology), we had to explain what the bluing was to many a freaked-out know all aerospace engineer, who upon seeing a WEDM'ed titanium part for the first time, would mistakenly think we had somehow "thermally damaged" the cut surfaces of his part to a depth of 2mm and it was now expensive scrap and started to jump up and down. <-- Engineer's reaction, Seriously.

This may sound amusing today, but if we weren't able to explain bluing to the at-that time to those EDM-paranoid engineers, we would have never received another titanium job from any of them. After this incident, we quickly learned to buff the top and bottom surfaces a bit to camouflage the bluing and eliminate any frantic questions or arguing for another titanium job. 

As a side note, this color proves that your material is real titanium, as no other material turns blue after wire-cut. Happy Wire-cutting Titanium, with blue. :)

Titanium Metal & Alloy Supplier - Singapore

Machining Tips for Titanium Metal & Alloys.

Machining Titanium:

Titan Engineering Pte Ltd Singapore offer the following technical information on the machinability of Titanium. This information is derived from the ASTM Technical guide to Titanium and should be used for reference knowledge only.

Introduction:

Titanium can be economically machined on a routine production basis if shop procedures are set up to allow for the physical characteristics common to the metal.  The factors which must be given consideration are not complex, but they are vital to successful handling of titanium.

Most important is that different grades of titanium, i.e., commercially pure titanium and various titanium alloys, will not all have identical machining characteristics, any more than all steels, or all aluminum grades have identical characteristics.  Like stainless steel, the low thermal conductivity of titanium inhibits dissipation of heat within the workplace itself, thus requiring proper application of coolants.

Generally, good tool life and work quality can be assured by rigid machine set-ups, use of a good coolant, sharp and proper tools, slower speeds, and heavier feeds.  Use of sharp tools is vital, because dull tools will accentuate heat build-up, to cause undue galling and seizing, leading to premature tool failure.

The machinability of commercially pure grades or titanium has been compared by veteran shop men to that of 18-8 stainless steel, with the alloy grades being somewhat harder to machine.  

Characteristics Influencing Machinability.

The fact that titanium sometimes is classified as difficult to machine by traditional methods in part can be explained by the physical, chemical, and mechanical properties of the metal. For example:

Titanium is a poor conductor of heat. Heat, generated by the cutting action, does not dissipate quickly.  Therefore, most of the heat is concentrated on the cutting edge and the tool face.

Titanium has a strong alloying tendency or chemical reactivity with materials in the cutting tools at tool operating temperatures. This causes galling, welding, and smearing along with rapid destruction of the cutting tool.

Titanium has a relatively low modulus of elasticity, thereby having more “springiness” than steel. Work has a tendency to move away from the cutting tool unless heavy cuts are maintained or proper backup is employed.  Slender parts tend to deflect under tool pressures, causing chatter, tool rubbing, and tolerance problems.  Rigidity of the entire system is consequently very important, as is the use of sharp, properly shaped cutting tools.

Titanium’s fatigue properties are strongly influenced by a tendency to surface damage if certain machining techniques are used. Care must be exercised to avoid the loss of surface integrity, especially during grinding.

Titanium’s work-hardening characteristics are such that titanium alloys demonstrate a complete absence of built-up edge. Because of the lack of a stationary mass of metal (built-up edge) ahead of the cutting tool, a high shearing angle is formed. This causes a thin chip to contact a relatively small area on the cutting tool face and results in high bearing loads per unit area. The high bearing force, combined with the friction developed by the chip as it rushes over the bearing area, results in a great increase in heat on a very localized portion of the cutting tool. Furthermore, the combination of high bearing forces and heat produces cratering action close to the cutting edge, resulting in rapid tool breakdown.

 With respect to titanium’s fatigue properties, briefly noted in the above list, the following details are of interest.

As stated, loss of surface integrity must be avoided. If this precaution is not observed, a dramatic loss of mechanical behavior (such as fatigue) can result. Even proper grinding practices using conventional parameters (wheel speed, downfeed, etc.) may result in appreciably lower fatigue strength due to surface damage.  The basic fatigue properties of many titanium alloys rely on a favorable compressive surface stress induced by tool action during machining. Electro-mechanical removal of material, producing a stress-free surface, can cause a debit from the customary design fatigue strength properties. (These results are similar when mechanical processes such as grinding are involved, although the reasons are different.) 

For further information, please contact Titan Engineering Pte Ltd, Singapore.

Titanium Metal Supplier - Singapore

Titan Engineering Pte Ltd is a Singapore based Stockiest & Distributors of Titanium metal & alloy materials to the various industries like aerospace, marine, Oil & Gas, chemical processing factories and Precision Engineering Companies. 

Complete packages of titanium pipes, flanges/forgings, plates, bars and fittings are supplied to the fabrication companies, contractors and engineering companies as well as direct supply to the major Oil & Gas industries. Titan has an extensive stock range of titanium metal plates, rods, sheets, strips and welding rods in CP grades as well as in Ti6Al4V grades. Our supply range includes Nickel, Inconel, Monel, Incoloy, extruded aluminum fin-tubes, heat exchanger tubes and MMO coated titanium anodes. 

As one of the largest titanium material distributors in Singapore, Titan Engineering is a global supplier of titanium mill products, stocking a complete range of prime titanium round bars, plates, sheets, billets, and various additional shapes to suit your requirements. Industries that we commonly serve include aerospace, oil and gas, medical, defense, chemical, automotive, precision engineering, tooling, marine, and recreational industries. 

Our Range of Products are: 

Titanium- Commercially pure(CP) grades 
Titanium Ti6AL4V & ELI grades 
Titanium Bars/ Rods 
Titanium Sheets, foils 
Titanium Pipes, tubes & fittings 
Titanium Wires & welding rods 
Titanium Fasteners 
Heat Exchanger Tubes 
Fin Tubes for process equipments 
Anodes for cathodic protection applications, 
Mixed Metal Oxide(MMO) coated Titanium Anodes, 
Platinum Coated Titanium Anodes 
Speciality Noble metals. 
Nickel Alloys Like Inconel® & Monel® 
Inconel Fasteners. 

Titan Engineering has developed significant alliances and strategic partnerships with major independent processors. This enables us to supply large "mill quantity" orders, without the long mill lead times. 

Our knowledgeable sales force is available to answer any questions you may have and will continuously support you through the entire purchasing process. We are committed to providing the best customer care in the titanium industry and exceeding your expectations on every level 

Titan works together with renowned manufacturers worldwide who specialize in these materials. The company supplies through its extensive stocks material or for larger quantities and longer deliveries, through major titanium and nickel manufacturers. 

We warmly welcome the opportunity of quoting on your needs, whether your requirement is large or small. 

Best Regards! 

Titan Engineering Pte Ltd
Blk 20 Woodlands Link #08-36
Woodlands East Industrial Estate
Singapore 738733
Ph: (65)6853 7424 Fax: (65)685 34970
Email: sales@titanium.com.sg
Web: www.titanium.com.sg