KAD Offers Citric Acid Passivation for Small Parts
New service alert! (Yes, another one!)
Last month we announced that we now offer in-house powder coating services. Today, we’re excited to tell you about another in-house finishing treatment we’re proud to provide our clients: citric acid passivation for small parts.
What Is Passivation?
Passivation is a popular post-processing chemical treatment that uses acid—often citric or nitric acid—to remove impurities from stainless steel parts.
303 stainless steel, for example, contains sulfur, which passivation can extract from the pores on the surface of the metal. Passivation can also successfully remove oil, grease, coolant, and other undesirable coatings left behind from the precision machining process.
Passivated stainless steel parts are clean, bright, corrosion resistant, and exceptionally sterile, which is why passivation is an especially popular choice for medical applications like lab equipment and medical devices that must adhere to cleanroom-grade standards.
For example, we manufacture parts for a client who runs tests in a sterile lab. The parts must be free from organic contaminants for the testing to succeed. Even the slightest amount of grease, coolant, or oil could ruin their work, so passivation is a necessary step.
KAD’s Citric Acid Passivation Capabilities
Previously, KAD relied on trusted external vendors to perform passivation services. Now, we’re providing this capability inside our Vermont and California precision machine shops. We offer citric acid passivation for various stainless steel alloys, including:
- 300 series stainless steel
- 400 series stainless steel
- 17-4 stainless steel
- 15-5 stainless steel
We can perform this service on small parts measuring up to 6” x 8”.
Decreasing lead times
Any opportunity to perform a service in-house and keep parts under one roof results in decreased lead times. Clients who request passivation services from KAD from this point forward will enjoy this benefit, which is most notable for projects involving complete assemblies.
Previously, we had to send parts out for stainless steel passivation and wait for them to return to our shop before we could complete an assembly in-house, easily adding up to a week to the project’s total lead time.
Now that we retain possession of the parts from machining through finishing and assembly, we’re cutting days from our clients’ timelines and delivering complete assemblies faster than ever.
Better serving our medical clients
We’re excited for the opportunity to better serve our medical clients with our in-house passivation services. In fact, our focus on the medical industry is what inspired our team to choose citric acid passivation over alternatives like sulphuric acid passivation.
Citric acid is a water-based, non-volatile chemical, meaning that it is easy to handle and dispose of when needed. More importantly, any citric acid residue left behind from the passivation process is harmless and non-reactive, making it safe for even the most sensitive medical applications.
If you need passivation services for your parts, KAD is here to deliver. Request a quote today, and our team will be in touch soon.