Project Summary
Advanced Chemical Etching (ACE), has developed a new and highly efficient chemical etching method that can improve the quality and dimensional tolerance accuracy of aluminium component manufacture to a new high.
The Challenge
- Aluminium and its alloys are increasingly prized in engineering for their lightweight durability that enables energy saving. However, they are generally considered to be difficult, slow and inefficient to etch using conventional chemistry.
- Consequently, many users resort to punching, stamping or laser cutting to produce profiles but this comes at cost… stressing and heat distortion of the metal and the production of burr edges that have to be removed in a separate process.
The Solution
- With the new process, ACE has a proven production route that is not only far quicker but also safer, and more controllable.
- It produces higher quality components with burr-free crisp edges and higher definition features that could not have been contemplated using the old technology.
- The new and exciting technology was first developed in the laboratory from scientific principles, and was then transformed through successive scale-up steps into a viable production process.
- Working closely with Wolverhampton University in a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KPT), ACE has developed a unique process for etching aluminium that is far superior to the conventional process.