Experimental investigation of electrochemical precision machining process for tungsten carbide-cobalt applying sodium nitrate electrolyte

The present study focuses on the anodic metal dissolution of tungsten carbide-cobalt (WC-Co). In the current state of the art, anodic metal dissolution of WC-Co with electrochemical machining on commercially available systems is feasible primarily with the application of modified electrolytes. This is due to the fact that tungsten carbide and cobalt exhibit different electrochemical properties at various pH values. In this work, the electrochemical machinability of WC-Co is experimentally investigated on a commercially available machine tool for electrochemical precision machining. A sodium nitrate solution is applied as the electrolyte. The main focuses of the study are a systematic determination of a process window for machining WC-Co and an Analysis of the resulting oxide layers.