Electroplating on aluminum requires specialized pretreatment due to the material's unique properties. These pretreatment steps must be tailored to different aluminum alloys and specific component conditions, as generic processes cannot be applied indiscriminately. Therefore, practitioners engaged in aluminum electroplating often need to conduct pretreatment trials.

To conduct such trials, the first step involves selecting pretreatment processes and designing improvement methods. Pretreatment for aluminum electroplating comprises four critical steps: degreasing, acid etching, chemical plating or displacement plating, and pre-plating. The most critical step is chemical plating or displacement plating, so testing often focuses on this process. Naturally, different aluminum materials and processing methods impose distinct pretreatment requirements. For instance, pretreatment for die-cast aluminum parts differs significantly from that for rolled aluminum parts. Even within the same processing method, different aluminum materials require tailored pretreatment processes—the copper content in aluminum directly impacts coating adhesion.

Testing pretreatment schemes for aluminum electroplating involves systematic comparative trials. Test specimens undergo different selected pretreatment processes, followed by identical electroplating operations, with subsequent adhesion testing. The key to such comparative trials is ensuring all conditions remain identical except for the differing process points. Otherwise, comparability is lost, rendering evaluation impossible.