On the occasion of the successful defense of his master thesis, the ZVO sends its congratulations to Franz Krümmling, student in the master program "Electrochemistry and Electroplating" at TU Ilmenau. In his defense, the ZVO scholarship holder presented the thesis "Investigation of pretreatment options to facilitate electrode position on nitrided steel and optimization of a process for coating selective solder nozzles". For selective soldering, solder nozzles made of nitrided steel would be useful to increase service life. Since the nozzles must be coated with nickel and tin before use, careful pretreatment of their surfaces is critical. Due to the passivity of the nitrided surface, this is a scientific and technical challenge that Franz Krümmling has taken up in his master's thesis.
The work was carried out in collaboration with Prof. Andrew Cobley's group at Coventry University and the companies Pillarhouse International Ltd. and TZO Leipzig GmbH. An important aspect is the detailed characterization of the mass removal as a function of the process parameters. This knowledge forms a basis for the subsequent coating processes, which significantly increase the service life of the solder nozzles. The results will also be presented at a meeting of the Electrochemical Society in Gothenburg.