Product Overview
JZ-2 is Fengfan's industrial-grade brightener for cyanide zinc plating — the additive that carries brightness, leveling and coverage in a cyanide zinc bath. It comes as a simple, single set of components, so the bath is looked after by addition rather than by re-balancing a long list of ingredients. Shops that run several part families tend to keep one brightener in the tank rather than swapping products as orders change, and this grade is built for that habit.
What makes it forgiving is the width of the bath it will work in. Zinc metal and sodium cyanide can both move a long way from their nominal figures without the deposit losing its bright, leveled finish, so low-cyanide, medium-cyanide and high-cyanide practice are all covered by one product. A line can vary its bath strength with the workload, or run two strengths side by side, without keeping a second brightener on the shelf.
We supply it as part of a zinc line that also covers sulfate and alkaline systems, so a shop moving between processes can keep its plating chemicals coming from one source. If you already run a cyanide zinc bath and you are only changing the brightener, the surrounding equipment stays exactly as it is.
Bath Operating Window
| Grade | Industrial grade |
| Classification | Chemical auxiliary agent; electroplating brightener |
| Zinc metal (Zn) | 5–30 g/L |
| Sodium cyanide (NaCN) | 5–70 g/L |
| Plating modes | Rack and barrel |
| Operating temperature | Up to 41 °C |
| Aldehyde content | None |
| Deposit appearance | Bright and leveled at low, medium and high current density |
| Low-current-density behaviour | Good dispersion in recessed and shielded areas |
| Barrel rotation rate | 6–8 times per minute |
| Bath behaviour | Stable, simple component set, good regeneration |
| Origin | China |
Deposit Performance
- Brightness comes up early in the cycle. The deposit reaches its bright appearance quickly after the part enters the bath, so a part does not need a long dwell to look finished.
- Leveling covers uneven current. A metal plating process rarely delivers even current across a whole rack, and the leveling is what stops high-current edges from looking different from the centre of the part.
- Brilliant at low, medium and high current density. One bath handles a mixed load — heavy sections, thin sections and shielded faces — without the low-current areas going grey.
- Good dispersion where the current is weakest. Recesses, thread roots and the inner parts of a barrel load are where a cyanide zinc bath earns its place, and this additive keeps them bright rather than just covered.
- Predictable after correction. The bath regenerates well, so brightness returns to its usual level after an addition instead of needing a settling period.
- Steady across a shift. It is built for industrial metal plating lines that run continuously, where the tenth rack of the day should still look like the first.
Bath Control and Maintenance
- Analyse first, then adjust. Check zinc metal and sodium cyanide against the bath window before anything else; brightener added to an out-of-balance bath mostly goes to waste.
- Treat free cyanide as the working variable. It falls as the bath plates and as drag-out takes it away, so the analysis — not the look of the parts — should decide when the bath needs cyanide.
- Keep the bath inside its temperature window. If the line runs hotter than the bath is designed for, cool it or talk to us about the practical options before brightness starts to drift.
- Add little and often. Small, frequent brightener additions through the shift keep a cyanide zinc plating process steadier than one large correction at the end of it.
- Keep carbonate and dragged-in soils in check. Both are normal in cyanide zinc; filter and treat the bath the way your line normally does, and act when brightness starts taking noticeably longer to develop.
- Write down what you add. Batch number, addition, analysis and running hours — a simple log is what makes plating chemicals predictable across shifts and across operators.
Rack and Barrel Operation
- Barrel work. Small fasteners, stampings and turned parts plate evenly when the load keeps turning through the bath; the low-current response is what stops parts buried inside the load from coming out dull.
- Rack work. Larger parts, deep-drawn components and anything with a visible face go on a rack, where leveling carries the finish across a surface that sees uneven current.
- One brightener for both. Industrial electroplating shops that switch between rack and barrel do not need a second additive or a second set of bath corrections.
- Complex geometry. Threads, blind holes and recessed faces are the reason a cyanide system is chosen over an acid one; keep the parts oriented so gas can escape and solution can reach the surface.
- Racking discipline. Contact points, shields and part spacing decide where the current lands — treat racking as part of the plating process, not as something done before it starts.
- Mixed loads. A rack carrying heavy sections and thin sections at once is workable; check the low-current areas on the first few parts before committing the whole batch.
Process Steps Around the Bath
- Degrease. Alkaline chemical degreasing, or electrolytic degreasing on heavily oiled work, until the surface is water-break free.
- Rinse. Hot water first, then running cold water, so cleaner does not carry into the acid.
- Derust or pickle. Acid pickling removes scale and rust; in most metal plating process lines this is the step that decides whether the zinc adheres cleanly or blisters later.
- Rinse and activate. A short hydrochloric acid dip activates the surface immediately before plating.
- Plate. The part goes into the cyanide zinc bath, on a rack or in a barrel, and comes out with a bright, leveled zinc layer — this is where the electroplating chemicals do their work.
- Rinse and neutralise. Cold rinse, then a dilute nitric neutralisation so the bath does not drag into the passivation.
- Passivate and seal. Post-treatment decides how the zinc behaves outdoors. We also supply trivalent chromium passivations and chrome-free sealants for this step, so plating and passivation can be matched before the first drum ships.
- Dry. Controlled drying cures the passivation film instead of cracking it, and that last step is what decides how the finish survives its first scratch.
Handling, Storage and Safety
This is a cyanide-bearing product and is handled as one. Keep drums and working solutions away from acids — an acid pickle tank sited next to a cyanide zinc bath is a hazard, not just an inconvenience — and keep the two areas on separate ventilation and separate spill kits. Whoever runs the bath should know where the free cyanide figures sit and what the plant procedure is if they move unexpectedly.
Store drums closed, dry, out of direct sunlight and off the floor, and keep them away from food, feed and acid stores. Work first in, first out: an old drum at the back of the store is the usual reason a bath behaves differently from the last one. Most industrial electroplating plants already run a chemical store on this basis — the point is to keep this drum inside it rather than beside the line.
Ask your sales contact for the safety data sheet for your market before the first shipment, and keep it with the bath records so whoever takes over the line has it. The same contact can tell you what local rules require for cyanide-bearing electroplating chemicals, including transport paperwork and the routing of cyanide rinse water.
Ordering and Delivery
| Payment | 100% T/T in advance |
| Minimum order quantity | Varies by chemical; confirmed with our sales team per order |
| Lead time | 2 weeks |
| Packing | 10 kg/box; 25 kg or 50 kg/bag; 20 kg/25 kg/30 kg/200 kg/drum; 1000 kg/IBC drum |
| Shipping | Per the terms agreed in the current contract |
| Price | Quoted per order for the grade and packing you specify |
| Documentation | Inspection certificate issued after delivery stating the batch number and warranty period |
Brightener Changeover Plan
- Send the bath analysis before anything moves. Zinc metal, sodium cyanide and carbonate figures from the bath you run today, plus the name of the brightener in it, are enough for us to say what a JZ-2 addition will do to the deposit and which numbers to watch on the first load.
- Check the line, not only the bath. Confirm the barrel turns at 6–8 times a minute, racks make clean contact, extraction over the tank is pulling, and the cooling can hold the bath at or below 41 °C on your hottest shift — a changeover that fails is usually a line problem rather than an additive one.
- Book the change into a low-pressure window. The end of a shift or a planned maintenance day leaves room for a slow first hour without holding a shipment; most industrial electroplating lines can absorb a switch this way because only the additive feeding the bath changes.
- Run one barrel or one rack first. Keep the rest of the line on the incumbent product for that shift so you have a production part to compare against, plated on the same day, from the same pretreatment.
- Compare at three current densities. Put the trial part beside a current-production part and look at high-current edges, the flat faces and the recesses separately; the recesses are the comparison that actually decides whether the change was worth making.
- Carry the trial through passivation and drying. A deposit that looks right coming out of the zinc tank can read differently after the passivation bath, so judge the finished part and not the intermediate.
- Keep the old brightener within reach. Holding one drum of the incumbent product until the new bath has run a full production cycle costs very little and gives you a rollback that does not depend on a delivery date.
- Give the bath a few turnovers before you judge it. Residual brightener from the previous product stays in the tank for a while, so the third or fourth production run is a fairer read than the first one.
Substrate and Process Compatibility
- Steel is the working substrate. Cold-rolled and hot-rolled sheet, wire-formed parts, fasteners, turned components and iron castings all run in this bath; the low-current dispersion is what carries the finish into threads and recesses instead of leaving them grey.
- Mixed loads on one rack. The bath holds its brightness across a zinc range of 5–30 g/L and a sodium cyanide range of 5–70 g/L, so a rack carrying thick sections and thin sections can go through together without a second bath or a second set of additions.
- Light metals are a different job. Zinc die-castings, aluminium and magnesium parts need other chemistry and a different pretreatment route — tell us the substrate before the load is planned and we will point you to the right system rather than let you find out on the first barrel.
- Acid carried over is the usual culprit. Pickle left on the rack is the commonest reason a first batch comes out dull or poorly bonded, so check the rinse volume between the acid and the zinc tank before you look at the brightener.
- High-strength parts need a bake in the right place. Spring-tempered and high-hardness components should go through de-embrittlement after plating and before passivation; reversing the order means stripping a good passivation film to bake underneath it.
- Post-treatment from the same source. Blue-white, colour and black finishes all sit on cyanide zinc, and we supply the trivalent chromium passivations and chrome-free sealants that follow this bath, so the electroplating chemicals and the passivation are matched before the first drum ships.
- Zinc under paint or powder is a different specification. If the deposit is a base for a coating rather than the visible finish, say so at enquiry — the passivation step is chosen differently and the wrong film can cost adhesion you would otherwise have had.
- A cyanide-free route is a separate decision. If your site or your customer will not accept free cyanide in the plant, this is the wrong product however good the deposit; we also supply alkaline cyanide-free zinc brighteners for exactly that case.
Technical Support & Model Matching
Choosing the right match is where most sourcing decisions stall. As a trading supplier, we keep one point of contact from first enquiry to after-sales: tell us what you are making and the conditions you work under, and we shortlist the closest matches from our supplier network, compare specifications and arrange samples before you commit to a bulk order. If something does not behave as expected, we work with the supplying partner on the cause and a practical fix, and stay with the case until it is settled. Email, WeChat or WhatsApp enquiries get a reply within 24 hours.
FAQ
Does the same brightener cover low-cyanide and high-cyanide baths?
Yes. The additive is designed for the full sodium cyanide range a cyanide zinc bath normally works in, from low-cyanide practice through to high-cyanide, so free cyanide can move within the bath's working range without a product change. Shops that vary bath strength with the workload keep one brightener on the shelf instead of two. What does change with bath strength is the addition rate — confirm that against your own analysis, or ask us for a starting point for your line.
What should I do if the bath runs hotter than it is designed for?
Bring it back into range if you can, because both the deposit and the brightener response are set up around the bath's stated operating temperature. If your line has no chiller and a hot season pushes it over, talk to us before compensating with extra additions — adding more brightener to a hot bath is rarely the answer. Plenty of industrial electroplating lines run without refrigeration; the fix is usually about airflow, tank time and how the load is scheduled.
Will recessed and threaded areas still plate bright?
That is exactly what a cyanide zinc system is chosen for. The additive gives good dispersion in low-current-density areas, so thread roots, recesses and the inner parts of a barrel load brighten along with the visible faces. It is the reason many industrial metal plating shops keep a cyanide line alongside their acid one. Racking and orientation still matter — if a recess cannot see the anode, no brightener will reach it — so check the first few parts before the batch runs.
Can I move an existing bath over to this brightener?
Usually yes, but do it in a controlled way: confirm zinc and cyanide levels first, then run a small batch before the whole line goes over so you can compare brightness and leveling against what you run now. Tell us what you are using at the moment and we will tell you what to watch for during the changeover, since a metal plating process rarely behaves identically on the first day with a new additive.
Is this brightener only for barrel work?
No. Barrel and rack are both supported on the same product, and a shop that runs both does not have to stock two additives or re-balance between them. What changes is how the load moves through the bath and how the parts are racked; the plating process itself stays the same, and so does the way the bath is analysed and topped up.
Does the additive contain aldehyde, and does that change anything for us?
It does not. The bath is aldehyde-free, which keeps one class of breakdown product out of the waste stream and makes the bath easier to live with over long runs. Cyanide destruction and the rest of your effluent route stay as they are — if you are reviewing treatment, our team can tell you what the plating chemicals in this bath contribute so your figures start from the right place.
Which zinc process should I be running — cyanide, alkaline or acid?
It depends on the parts. A cyanide zinc bath is chosen where coverage in recesses and tolerance of a mixed load matter more than the simplest possible waste stream; cyanide-free alkaline and sulfate acid systems each have their own strengths. We supply all of them, so the quickest way to settle it is to send us the substrate, the part geometry and what the finish has to survive, and we will point you to the right electroplating chemicals for the job.