ELECTROLESS PLATING

"Process to produce thin metallic coatings on objects without the application of external current. The plating bath contains a dissolved salt of the metal and a reducing agent. However, the reduction of the metal cation to metal occurs only on the surface of the object to be coated due to the catalytic nature of the surface. The advantages of this process over electroplating are the possibility to produce coatings on insulator materials, and to produce uniform thickness coatings on geometrically complex surfaces. "