Computational fluid dynamics analysis of sparger systems in electroless nickel plating processing tank

Abstract

Research on Electroless Nickel Plating (ENP) process has been quite intensive in the past decade. Whilst there have been many studies analyzing the quality of the electroless nickel deposits on the substrate of interest, the flow dynamics in the process tank, especially those using computational simulation are scarce. In this study, the flow dynamics from two types of sparger systems namely Piping-Sparger (PS) and Perforated-Plate-Sparger (PPS) were simulated using FLUENT software. Multiphase computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method of volume of fluid (VOF) was used to analyze fluid flow in the ENP processing tank. A constant mass flow rate was used for both sparger systems in order to determine the velocity profiles and the flow field across the processing tank. The results showed improvements in terms of velocity distribution by PPS. It is expected that the optimized flow dynamics by the PPS system is beneficial in promoting homogenous chemical composition in the ENP processing tank, providing consistent and uniform coverage of chemical, removing hydrogen bubbles from the surface to be plated effectively and encouraging by-product or other suspended contaminant moves away from processing tank and into the filtration system.