Experimental investigation on electrochemical micromachining of ss304 using eco friendly cathode and electrolyte

Abstract

The manufacturing industrial sector is under strong global criticism for its negligence towards environmental issues. Since the industrial revolution, the manufacturing sector plays a vital role which has adverse effects on climate change and most of the manufacturing industries and the processes associated have their major share by acting as a fuel to the climate change by breathing out toxic by-products, volatile organic compounds and by producing non-degradable and toxic wastes that disturbs the entire abiotic and biotic ecosystem of the planet earth. Environmental impact assessment is one of the analysis indicators towards sustainability study. This research focuses on green micromachining considering the demand for micro and nano components. This increased demand made the research industries/ organizations and institutions focus on the direction of un-conventional manufacturing from conventional manufacturing processes. Electrochemical micromachining (ECMM) is one of the unconventional manufacturing processes that are eco-friendly and still in research-level due to various factors like skilled labour, complex chemical reactions that take place in electrochemical cell and selection of input parameters for the demanded component. This research experimentally investigates the influence of producing a micro-hole feature on the anode material SS304 using the Electrochemical Micromachining (ECMM) process. The green ECMM process strictly uses eco-friendly materials. An innovative cathode tool Pencil Graphite Electrode (PGE) of two variants namely the Non-treated PGE (NPGE) and the cryo-treated PGE (CPGE) is introduced to produce precise micro-holes on the anode material SS304 submerged newline