Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Molybdenum - how to etch/roughen?

lahthffire - 7-6-2006 at 13:31

I need to figure out a way to take molybdenum sheet with a smooth surface finish and roughen it. Abrasive blasting hasn't worked all that well. A belt sander does work OK, but I want to find another solution; a chemical one. There's always the worry of contamination of the metal surface with the abrasive media in the above two methods.

So what would be a good acid / other chemical to use for etching?

12AX7 - 7-6-2006 at 13:48

If you want it hell ass rough I don't think chemical means will be very useful, aside from nasty pitting if you can make it. Getting such a deep corrosion is going to use a lot of metal, too.

Tim

lordmagnus - 7-6-2006 at 20:46

Good luck,

Maybe hydroflouric acid at various dilutions. The old Steel divers airtanks were coated with a few layers of molybdenum t resist corrosion, I don't think I've ever seen one actually rust

chromium - 8-6-2006 at 02:18

If you have time to experiment, you may try to use your molybdenum as anode in electrolytic cell with different electrolytes. Some of electrolytes may appear quite destructive to surface but then again they may just passivate or oxidise surface. Some amount of HF (or maybe just NaF) is probably needed to get etching to work.