Photochemical etching or chemical etching is not a word we hear in our daily lives but we do use things in our day-to-day life that are made by this process. Simple things like springs, contacts, and even covers or lids are manufactured using this process. Chemical etching in the present date is a very economical and efficient process and is used to manufacture numerous things. Any etching company in the world today is intensively expanding their business because this process has become so famous and is cheap too. Here is an article that will help you understand more about any etching company and the process too.

CHEMICAL ETCHING

Chemical etching is also known as photochemical machining or simply as photo etching is the process in which chemical etchants are used to profile highly accurate and complex metal components. This requires high precision and is a subtractive process of manufacturing. This generally uses temperature bath technology to regulate the etching chemicals. This then carefully chooses and removes the material to finally produce the highly precise metals in various shapes.

WORKING OF PHOTOCHEMICAL ETCHING

The working of chemical etching is carried out in a few series of procedures. These procedures consist of lamination, cleaning, development process, exposure, etching, and finally stripping. The lamination process is generally executed with layers of lighting sympathetic and sensitive resist. This material is then exposed to Ultraviolet light and is developed to finally extract an image that is positive of the actual material or product. All steps when performed are in highly controlled conditions to make sure the results are perfect.

BENEFITS OF PHOTOCHEMICAL ETCHING

This process of photochemical etching is extremely helpful for the production of metal parts that are multilayered, complex, and need very high precision. Here are a few benefits of chemical etching.

• It is a flexible tool that can be used for fast prototyping and also design various changes.
• Highly effective for creating sharp edges, profiled edges, round or oval holes, and also straight edges.
• The turnaround is very fast in the case of photochemical etching.
• Photochemical etching produces parts that are absolutely burr-free with lower levels of tolerance too.
• In this process, the properties of the material that is being used remain untouched and unchanged.
• It is a very low-cost process that makes it better for a larger number of production of complex design parts.

ETCHABLE MATERIALS

Numerous items are etched in the present day. Here are a few materials that can be etched.

• Brass
• Phosphor Bronze
• Mu-Metal
• Beryllium Copper
• Mild Steel
• Nickel Silver
• Tool Steel
• Nickel Alloys
• Aluminum
• Stainless Steel
• Martensitic and Ferritic Steel
• Austenitic Stainless Steel
• Invar
• Molybdenum
• Spring Steel
• Inconel
• Carbon Steel

FINAL WORDS

The best thing about the etching process is that it is cheap and every etching company is trying to expand. This is used to make numerous daily items that we didn’t even know about. These items are generally things like batteries, clipboards, washers, and filter items. Other than that this process is also used for the manufacturing of medical equipment or military aircraft.