Corrotherm International (Hampshire, United Kingdom), a specialist in the supply of nickel and nickel alloy materials, is adding a new product to its already extensive line-up of heat- and corrosion-resistant alloys: nickel foil.
The new ultra-thin nickel foil offers excellent corrosion, welding, and forming properties, making it an alternative to the more traditional cold-rolled nickel 200 and 201. The key advantage of the new nickel foil over other alternative alloy products is that it can be manufactured in extremely thin sheets, as thin as 6 µm, which is thinner than a human hair.
Conventional rolling techniques don’t allow for such a thin result to be economically achieved. Instead the high-purity nickel foil (>99.97% nickel) is electrodeposited, which allows the material to be produced both in thinner thicknesses and greater widths than with traditional techniques.
The new nickel foil is available in a choice of surface finishes, from optical-quality mirror finishes to textured surfaces, with unique textures available. There is also an option of additional adhesive coatings, which can be laminated on one or both sides of the foil, while other surface coatings, such as black nickel oxide and PTFE impregnation, can also be applied as required.
The product can be manufactured in a range of thicknesses from 6 to 150 µm, and in widths up to 1,020 mm, wider than has been possible using traditional techniques. It offers a tensile strength of up to 790 MPa in its raw electrodeposited state and up to 300 MPa when fully annealed.
It's likely to find a wide range of applications across the engineering sector, including battery mesh and fuel cells, heating elements, pressure valve bursting discs, electronics and microelectronics, EMI/RFI, RFID, and security tags polymer fuses. Typical sectors that could benefit from the ultra-thin nickel foil include medical, analytical, aerospace, automotive, dental, and renewable energy.
For more information contact Corrotherm International, Ltd. at tel: +44 (23) 8074 8100; fax: +44 (0) 23 8074 8114; e-mail: sales@Corrotherm.co.uk; and Web site: Corrotherm.co.uk.