HULL CELL 101

Q: I have recently started working in a plating plant laboratory. One of the tasks I must take care of is performing Hull Cell tests. I have not been able to find any information on the cell. Can you supply me with some information or references? Also, why is the cell designed to hold 267 mL of solution? N.B.

A: The Hull Cell is used in many plating facilities to monitor the “health” of plating baths. It is also widely used to determine approximate amounts of additives that should be added to a bath. This is where the 267 mL comes in. In a typical plating plant the production area uses the so-called English system of units, ounces and gallons. Most chemistry laboratories operate using the metric system, grams and liters. When the chemist runs his Hull Cell tests he may determine, for example, that adding one gram of material to the 267 mL of the cell improves the plating results. This one gram addition to 267 mL is equivalent to 0.5 oz/gal in the plating tank: 1g/267 mL= 3.74 g/L = 14.16 g/3.78 L= 0.5 oz/gal.

Regarding information on the Hull Cell testing procedures, there is a lot of information available on the Internet. Start by going to www.pfonline.com and do a search using the term Hull Cell Testing. A similar search on www.finishing.com will yield a lot of information. Last but not least, a Google search using the same term will give you a huge number of excellent links.