Carbodeon Ltd. Oy has announced improvements to electroless nickel including a 3x improvement in wear resistance through the controlled addition of nano-diamonds.
Nanodiamond particles are hardwearing, small and offer very low surface friction. Since their discovery in cold-war Russia, they have been a little-known secret used to improve the performance of hard chrome plating. Platers have added liquid suspensions containing clusters of these diamond particles into the electrolyte and experienced significant improvements in durability of the plating for such applications as gun barrels and machine parts. NanoDiamonds are synthesized by a detonation process that results in diamond particles with surface functionalization, enabling them to have a positive charge in solution and to deposit together with the metal ions in the plating process.
Carbodeon has developed modified versions of these nanodiamonds, where the surface functionalization is specifically controlled. For plating applications, the result is that the particle charge or “zeta potential” is much higher - around 50% more than traditional nanodiamonds.