Chemical milling

Chemical milling or industrial etching is the subtractive manufacturing process of using baths of temperature-regulated etching chemicals to remove material to create an object with the desired shape. Other names for chemical etching include photo etching, chemical etching, photo chemical etching and photochemical machining. It is mostly used on metals, though other materials are increasingly important. It was developed from armor-decorating and printing etching processes developed during the Renaissance as alternatives to engraving on metal. The process essentially involves bathing the cutting areas in a corrosive chemical known as an etchant, which reacts with the material in the area to be cut and causes the solid material to be dissolved; inert substances known as maskants are used to protect specific areas of the material as resists.

Organic chemicals such as lactic acid and citric acid have been used to etch metals and create products as early as 400 BCE, when vinegar was used to corrode lead and create the pigment ceruse, also known as white lead. Most modern chemical milling methods involve alkaline etchants; these may have been used as early as the first century CE.

Armor etching, using strong mineral acids, was not developed until the fifteenth century. Etchants mixed from salt, charcoal, and vinegar were applied to plate armor that had been painted with a maskant of linseed-oil paint. The etchant would bite into the unprotected areas, causing the painted areas to be raised into relief. Etching in this manner allowed armor to be decorated as if with precise engraving, but without the existence of raised burrs; it also prevented the necessity of the armor being softer than an engraving tool. Late in the seventeenth century, etching became used to produce the graduations on measuring instruments; the thinness of lines that etching could produce allowed for the production of more precise and accurate instruments than were possible before. Not long after, it became used to etch trajectory information plates for cannon and artillery operators; paper would rarely survive the rigors of combat, but an etched plate could be quite durable. Often such information (normally ranging marks) was etched onto equipment such as stiletto daggers or shovels.

In 1782, the discovery was made by John Senebier that certain resins lost their solubility to turpentine when exposed to light; that is, they hardened. This allowed the development of photochemical milling, where a liquid maskant is applied to the entire surface of a material, and the outline of the area to be masked created by exposing it to UV light. Photo-chemical milling was extensively used in the development of photography methods, allowing light to create impressions on metal plates.

One of the earliest uses of chemical etching to mill commercial parts was in 1927, when the Swedish company Aktiebolaget Separator patented a method of producing edge filters by chemically milling the gaps in the filters. Later, around the 1940s, it became widely used to machine thin samples of very hard metal; photo-etching from both sides was used to cut sheet metal, foil, and shim stock to create shims, recording heat frets, and other components.

Etching has applications in the printed circuit board and semiconductor fabrication industries. It is also used in the aerospace industry to remove shallow layers of material from large aircraft components, missile skin panels, and extruded parts for airframes. Etching is used widely to manufacture integrated circuits and Microelectromechanical systems. In addition to the standard, liquid-based techniques, the semiconductor industry commonly uses plasma etching.

Chemical milling is normally performed in a series of five steps: cleaning, masking, scribing, etching, and demasking. Video of chemical milling process Learn more about the video

Cleaning is the preparatory process of ensuring that the surface to be etched is free of contaminants which could negatively impact the quality of the finished part. An improperly cleaned surface could result in poor adhesion of the maskant, causing areas to be etched erroneously, or a non-uniform etch rate which could result in inaccurate final dimensions. The surface must be kept free from oils, grease, primer coatings, markings and other residue from the marking out process, scale (oxidation), and any other foreign contaminants. For most metals, this step can be performed by applying a solvent substance to the surface to be etched, washing away foreign contaminants. The material may also be immersed in alkaline cleaners or specialized de-oxidizing solutions. It is common practice in modern industrial chemical etching facilities that the workpiece never be directly handled after this process, as oils from human skin could easily contaminate the surface.