This is a liquid sealing agent and passivator for aluminum, supplied nickel-free and chromium-free. It goes into the last wet stage of aluminum anodizing, where it closes the pores of the oxide film, and it can equally be run on cleaned, unanodized aluminum as a passivation layer that carries paint, powder or adhesive.
The bath works cold. The full window is 14 to 25 °C, and most lines settle between 16 and 18 °C — no boiling seal tank, no steam over the line, and no heat-driven movement on thin-wall or long extrusions. Concentration runs from 10 to 70 g/L, with 20 to 50 g/L covering normal production.
With no nickel in the formulation, the rinse after the seal carries no nickel into waste treatment and the tank stops driving nickel handling on the shop floor. With no chromium, it can take over from a trivalent or hexavalent chromium pretreatment where that step exists only to give a coating something to grip.
The same bath suits a two-tank job shop and a full aluminum anodizing service plant; the parameters do not change with scale, only the tank size and the number of loads per shift. Nothing about the tank has to be rebuilt to run it, which is what makes a switch practical mid-season rather than at the next rebuild.
| Parameter | Operating range | Optimal condition |
|---|---|---|
| Phoenix Ecoseal 6 concentration | 10 ~ 70 g/L | 20 ~ 50 g/L |
| Deionized water conductivity | ≤30 µs/cm | ≤10 µs/cm |
| Temperature | 14 ~ 25 °C | 16 ~ 18 °C |
| Time, passivation | 1 ~ 30 min | 1 ~ 3 min |
| Time, pre-treatment coating | 1 ~ 30 min | 5 ~ 20 min |
| Time, sealing | 2 ~ 25 min | 3 ~ 20 min |
| pH | 4.0 ~ 5.0 | 4.4 ~ 4.9 |
| Air stirring | Not recommended | Not recommended |
| Cycle filtration | Recommended | Recommended |
| Item | Terms |
|---|---|
| Payment | 100% T/T in advance |
| Minimum order quantity | Varies by chemical; confirmed with our sales team for each 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 |
| Documentation | Inspection certificate issued after delivery, stating the batch number and warranty period |
| Check | What it settles | How to read the result |
| Film type and build, held constant | Which work the bath is run on, and whether the comparison itself is fair | Clear, dyed and electrolytically coloured films on anodized aluminum run from the same recipe and the same 3–20 min sealing window; keep film thickness and dye load identical across coupons, and confirm with us before running a hard-anodized film. |
| Seal against your current process | Whether a difference comes from the seal or from the metal | Seal one coupon in this bath and one in the process you run today, same alloy and same film build; whatever you measure afterwards belongs to the seal. |
| Alkali resistance, sealed area against unsealed area of one part | Whether the pores have actually closed | Use the caustic strength and contact time your customer's specification writes. A sealed area that whitens or chalks like the bare area means the film is still open — extend the time inside 2–25 min and re-test before you judge the product. |
| Neutral salt spray on sealed coupons | Corrosion performance in the units the specification is written in | Compare hours to first corrosion against your control coupon, not against a catalogue figure; a seal that pushes that point further out has done its job on that alloy. |
| Dye stain and rinse | Open porosity, visible without instruments | Leave the dye on the sealed surface for the time your method specifies, rinse, and read the surface: colour that rinses clean means closed pores, colour that holds means open ones. |
| Cross-hatch and tape pull, when the bath runs as a coating pretreatment | Whether the coating has a key | Coating that lifts at the tape means the pretreatment time was short; move up inside 5–20 min and test again before the parts reach the paint line. |
| Bath record for that load | Whether a failure came from the bath or from the part | Log concentration, pH, temperature and deionized water conductivity beside the coupon. A result from a bath outside 20–50 g/L, 4.4–4.9 or 16–18 °C measures the bath, not the seal, so correct the bath and re-run the coupon. Because this is the closing stage of the aluminum anodizing process, a coupon pulled off the production line is as valid as a laboratory panel. |
Before the first drum is opened. The working bath is acidic at pH 4.0–5.0 and the concentrate carries its own classification, so read the SDS for the grade you are buying before you decant, keep the lid closed on a part-used drum, and keep a dedicated measure rather than a shared jug. Store drums and IBCs in a cool, dry, ventilated place, out of direct sun and off the floor on pallets, and label each opened drum with the date.
Sizing the pack to the tank. At 20–50 g/L a 1,000 L bath takes 20–50 kg of product, so a single 25 kg drum covers a small tank at the mid-band with little left for top-up. A plant running several tanks, or an aluminum anodizing service running around the clock, is better served by the 200 kg drum or the 1,000 kg IBC. Size the pack to a month of make-up plus top-up and you avoid both a shelf of part-drums and a drum that runs dry mid-shift.
While the bath is running. Because the tank uses no air agitation it does not throw the aerosol a boiling seal does, which makes the stage easier to live with on an open line. Keep the tank covered when idle and let circulation filtration carry the maintenance load. Handle it as you would any other acidic stage on the line: separate equipment, a spill kit and absorbent at the tank, and a contained spill rather than one hosed toward a drain.
Rinse and waste. The rinse after the seal carries no nickel and no chromium, which takes the metal load off the plant's treatment step, but it is still process water and belongs in the treatment system rather than a surface drain. Where your local rules ask for it, keep the rinse stream separate from other line rinses so the nickel-free chemistry is not mixed back into a nickel-bearing stream.
Documents that travel with the order. Ask your sales contact for the current SDS plus the transport paperwork for the mode you are shipping — the papers a sea container needs are not the same as those for an air shipment, and an IBC adds packaging documentation of its own. The delivery paperwork states the batch number; write that number on the tank log beside the date the drum was opened, so any result on the line can be traced back to a lot.
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.
Three things change at once. The bath puts no nickel and no chromium into the rinse, so the seal stops being the step that drives nickel handling and chromium paperwork. It runs at 14–25 °C, which takes the seal tank off the energy list and keeps thin or long parts from moving in the heat. And the layer is colourless, so the part's appearance is unchanged and the finish still reads as the metal rather than as a coating. In service, the sealed film resists alkaline attack better than a conventional seal. On an aluminum anodizing service, that combination usually answers the two questions customers ask first: what is in the bath, and did the appearance change.
Shops that anodize aluminum for architecture, electronics or hardware all run the same bath; what changes between them is the alloy and the film build. The sealer works with the aluminum alloys normally sealed after anodizing and with the standard aluminum anodizing workflows — sealing straight after the oxide, sealing after electrolytic colouring or dyeing, and passivation on bare cleaned aluminum. It also improves the bond for printing or coating applied over the film. Tell us the alloy and film thickness you are running and we will give you a starting time to confirm on a coupon before the first production rack.
Yes, inside fixed limits. Concentration runs 10–70 g/L, temperature 14–25 °C, pH 4.0–5.0, sealing 2–25 min and passivation 1–30 min, with pre-treatment coating at 5–20 min. That is wide enough to tune the bath to an alloy, a film build or a line speed without special equipment. What we would not do is run outside those ranges to chase a number — they exist to protect the result. An aluminum anodizing service switching between clear and dyed work through the week can hold one mid-band recipe and vary only the time.
Mostly water and pH. Keep the deionized water at or below 30 µS/cm, check concentration and pH on your normal lab schedule, and leave circulation filtration running continuously. Because air agitation is not used, there is no foam to control and nothing driving airborne contamination into the tank, which is a large part of why the bath stays predictable. Temperature is the other handling point: on anodized aluminum sealing this bath usually needs cooling rather than heating, so plan the tank and the summer ambient around that. And since the layer leaves no residue, parts come out of the rinse clean and do not need wiping.
Yes — it is the same chemistry doing a different job. On bare, cleaned aluminum it forms a colourless, transparent passivation layer in 1–30 min and can take the place of a trivalent or hexavalent chromium pretreatment; ahead of liquid coating, powder coating or gluing it runs 5–20 min and gives the coating a key. If the part is anodized and dyed first, the same bath seals the film instead, and because the layer carries no colour of its own, work such as black anodized aluminum comes out of the tank at the depth it went in.
Run the check your customer's specification already names — alkali resistance or a neutral salt spray on a sealed coupon — and compare it against a part sealed with your current process, on the same alloy and the same film thickness. Those two variables move a result more than the seal does, so keep them fixed during the comparison. This product is specified to resist alkaline attack better than a conventional seal, so an alkali test usually shows the difference fastest. Because the seal is the last step of the aluminum anodizing process, a coupon taken off the line is as valid as a laboratory panel; on an aluminum anodizing kit, small tanks drift faster, so test a little more often.
