Nickel foam has broad application prospects, and electroless nickel plating is its main preparation method.

Nickel foam, also known as sponge metal, is a three-dimensional porous network structure material composed of metallic nickel. Nickel foam has the characteristics of high conductivity, lightweight, uniform structure, good corrosion resistance, and high porosity. It is widely used in catalysts, fuel cells, electromagnetic shielding materials, electrode materials, transportation, construction engineering and other fields.

Nickel foam preparation methods include immersion plating, chemical nickel plating and vacuum nickel plating. The electroless nickel plating method is the mainstream preparation method of nickel foam. Its main preparation process includes raw material preparation, conductive treatment, electroplating, roasting, reduction, annealing, etc. The electroless nickel plating method has the advantages of high technological maturity, convenient operation, and simple equipment. The nickel foam produced by this method has the characteristics of good pore uniformity and good corrosion resistance. With the continuous improvement of technological level, the development speed of nickel foam industry will further accelerate.

Nickel foam is usually composed of metallic nickel and dopants, and metallic nickel accounts for nearly 70% of its production cost. Metallic elemental nickel has the advantages of high temperature resistance, good ductility, and high mechanical strength, and is widely used in the industrial field. my country’s nickel ore resource reserves are relatively low, and the main production areas are concentrated in Jilin, Gansu, Qinghai and Xinjiang. my country is one of the world’s major importers of elemental nickel. Due to factors such as insufficient supply of raw materials and high production costs, the market share of foamed nickel is low, and the industry has huge development potential.

Nickel foam has broad application prospects in many fields. In the field of fuel cells, nickel foam can be used as bipolar plate modification materials and electrocatalysts for solid oxide fuel cells, proton exchange membrane fuel cells, molten carbonate fuel cells; in the field of electrode materials, nickel foam can be used as mobile phones , electrode materials for batteries of electronic devices such as tablet computers. Benefiting from the increasingly strong market demand, the development space of the nickel foam industry continues to expand. According to the “2023-2028 China Nickel Foam Industry Market In-depth Research and Development Prospects Forecast Report released by the Industrial Research Center, 2022 The global nickel foam market size reached US$290 million in 2018, a year-on-year increase of 6.2%.

The world’s leading nickel foam companies are Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., Ltd. of Japan, NITECH of France, INCO of Canada, etc. There are many nickel foam manufacturers in my country, and the market competition is fierce. Corun, Tenerhui Electronics, Ailantian, Tianyu Technology, Sanhe Materials, etc. are the main manufacturers of nickel foam in my country.

Industry analysts said that as a new type of foam metal, nickel foam has excellent performance and has broad application prospects in many high-tech fields. However, currently limited by factors such as insufficient supply of raw materials, my country’s nickel foam production costs are high and the market share is low. There is still huge room for development in the industry. In the future, as the technological maturity of local enterprises increases, the development trend of my country’s nickel foam industry will continue to improve.