Drag-Out Minimization

By minimizing the amount of drag-out carried from a plating or cleaning bath to a rinsing bath, a smaller amount of water is needed to rinse off the workpiece. Also, less of the plating solution constituents leave the process, which ultimately produces savings in raw materials and treatment/disposal costs. 

The plating bath can also contain impurities which cannot be removed by ordinary filtration, such as solubilized metals dragged in from a previous etching bath (Foecke 1989). Ion exchange (IE) treatment can often be used for removing solubilized metals, although IE systems are fairly expensive compared to standard filtration technologies. 

The amount of drag-out from a bath depends on the following factors  

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Every workpiece has at least one racking position in which drag-out will be at a minimum. In general, to minimize drag-out... 

Many knock-down, drag-out battles between experimenter and tester result when the test variation is considered too large. This topic is not worthy of discussion unless somewhere along the line the basic test error has been sought out, identified, minimized if possible, and published. In Chapters VI and VII, methods for pinning down the sources of test error ate discussed. 

All PPE should be removed and disposed of in the hazardous waste chute or disposal bag when removing hands from the enclosure to prevent dragging powders out of the unit. Users should be trained in aseptic glove removal technique to minimize aerosolization of material during a process where skin could become exposed. 

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