Metallizing

Abstract

Plastics can be coated with metals for decorative or functional purposes, or both. This article is broken down into four sections that are the four main techniques of metallizing: electroless plating, metal‐spraying, sputtering, and vacuum metallizing. The most important commercial process is electroless plating, which includes plating on plastics for automotive and decorative uses and the related technologies for printed circuits. Flame or arc spraying is mainly used for functional purposes such as radio‐frequency‐interference shielding. Sputtering and vacuum metallizing are widely used, often in continuous coating of plastic films where they are the predominant technologies. Other techniques such as metallic‐filled paints and hot stamping are also used. The beginning of these processes goes back 80–130 years, but many of these processes have only achieved commercial importance for coating of plastic materials relatively recently.