Materials used in metal finishing processes can be effectively recovered using available technologies such as dragout, evaporation, reverse osmosis, ion exchange, electrodialysis and electrolytic recovery. Dragout Recovery Dragout recovery is a simple technology used by metal finishers to recover plating chemicals. It involves using drain boards, drip tanks, fog-spray tanks or dragout tanks separately, or in combination, to capture plating chemicals dragged out of plating tanks from parts being plated. Drain boards are widely used throughout the metal industry to capture plating solutions. Boards are suspended between process tanks and are constructed of plastic, plain or teflon-coated steel.
Solutions drip on the boards and drain back into their respective processing tanks.
In contrast, a drip tank recovers process chemicals by collecting drag out into an empty tank, from which it can be returned to the process as needed. The solution that collects in the fog-spray tank is returned to the process tank as needed. The added water helps to offset evaporative losses from the process tanks. Dragout tanks are essentially rinse tanks. Dragout chemicals are captured in a water solution, which is returned to the process tank as needed.