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E-Pure MSA® (Methane Sulfonic Acid)

Discover the Product range Sulfonyls.
CAS 75-75-2
Product overview

E-Pure MSA® is a high-purity methane sulfonic acid (CH3-SO3H), a sulfonyl derivative developed by Arkema to offer exceptional performance in various industrial applications. It has become a preferred choice for industries requiring precise and efficient chemical solutions.

Geographic availability
  • Worldwide

Smart Advantages

 
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Fewer side reactions
  • Less harmful baths
  • Less agressive to the shop environment & equipment 
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Higher performances
  • More stable & efficient 
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More environmentally friendly
  • Baths produce less wastage & sludge which can be more easily treated
  • Nitrogen & Phosphorous free causes no eutrophication

Chemical name: Methane sulfonic acid
Common name: MSA

Introducing E-Pure MSA®: Arkema's Premium Sulfonyl Compound

Key Features and Benefits:

 

  • High purity: E-Pure MSA® is manufactured to stringent quality standards, ensuring a purity level that meets the strictest requirements of industrial processes.
  • The high conductivity of MSA electrolytes and the high solubility of metal mesylates make E-Pure MSA® a well-established solution in plating industry, allowing high plating rates as well as energy, raw material, and effluent costs savings.
  • More environmentally friendly: E-Pure MSA® based plating baths produce less waste and sludge that can be more easily treated. The effluents, free from Nitrogen & Phosphorous do not induce eutrophication of waterway. The methane sulfonic acid content can easily be managed by wastewater treatment plants due to its readily biodegradable nature.
  • The strong acidity of E-Pure MSA® is efficiently combined with its non-oxidizing properties, which is beneficial for the plating industry by improving yields and reducing sludge production.

Applications

E-Pure MSA® is used as an electrolyte in the electroplating industry (printed circuit boards and connectors, wire and steel strip plating, metal finishing), for the recovery of high purity metal through electrometallurgy (electrowinning), the leaching of smelters slags or fumes ashes. It is used in metal refining (Sn, Pb, Zn, Cu), for the regeneration of ions exchange resins and for treatment of aluminum (anodizing, coloring).

Electroplating and electrolyte / stripping:

Electroplating is the operation by which a layer of metal or alloy is deposited on a surface through the reduction of metal salts of an electrolyte with the electrons provided by power supply.

An equivalent technology, known as electroless plating, is possible with electrons resulting from redox reaction and allows metal plating on non-conductive surfaces. 

When the current is reversed, the opposite phenomenon of dissolution of plated metal in the electrolyte occurs and is called stripping. E-Pure MSA® is used as an electrolyte in Sn, Sn alloy or Sn/Pb electroplating baths. It has technical advantages over competing technologies such as Phenol Sulfonic Acid (PSA), Fluoroboric acid (HBF4), Sulfuric acid (H2SO4) and Halides.
The high solubility of salts enables the plating of a wide variety of metals. The high conductivity of MSA allows plating across a wide range of current density resulting in an increased throwing power.

With non oxidative E-Pure MSA®, the bath can operate with lower metal content and show reduced wastes (less metal oxidation products compared to sulfuric acid for example) E-Pure MSA® also offers the possibility to recycle electrolytes after electrowinning.

Typical markets for E-Pure MSA® electrolytes are tin plating on steel strips or wires, solder application on copper, but also solder stripping from printed circuit boards.

Metal refining: Sn, Pb, Zn, Cu:

Adding E-Pure MSA® to electrolysis baths increases the purity of recovered metals from 99.9 to 99.99% for Tin and to 99.999% for Cu, Zn and Pb.

Metal recovery:

Slags / urban mining: lead ore, lead batteries, silver-rich wastes, printed circuit boards.

E-Pure MSA® is used as a leaching agent to extract lead from lead-rich slags or lead battery material to extract and recover lead mesylate.

Silver can be extracted from silver-rich urban mining resources (silver films, photovoltaic cells) to form highly soluble silver mesylate.

Nickel and Copper can be recovered from used printed circuit boards through E-Pure MSA® electrochemical stripping, after alkaline leaching of solders, allowing gold recovery.

Solder, nickel and copper can then be recovered through electrowinning.

Treatment of Tin and zinc ores:

The addition of E-Pure MSA® to sulfuric acid electrolyte improves the electrowinning performance for the treatment of Sn and Zn ores.

A more friendly environmental grade

E-Pure® MSA is replacing most of classical acids used in Sn or Sn/Pb electroplating baths such as Phenol Sulfonic Acid (PSA), Fluoroboric acid (HBF4), Sulfuric acid (H2SO4) and Halides, and frees processes from toxic lead and hazardous fluoborates. With E-Pure MSA®, bath can operate with lower metal content and allows for reduced waste, sludge and fewer residues and effluents. E-Pure® MSA also offers the possibility to recycle electrolytes.

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