Abstract
In this article, we survey the progress that has been attained to date in the area of surface finishing with solvents derived from Lewis acidic room-temperature chloroaluminate ionic liquids, such as AlCl3-1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride and AlCl3-1-(1-butyl)pyridinium chloride. This field of study has received constant attention since the late 1970's. For descriptive purposes, the surface finishing technology associated with these ionic liquids is divided into four categories: Al plating, underpotential plating of binary Al alloys, overpotential plating of binary Al alloys, and overpotential plating of ternary Al alloys. We include in this report recent experimental results describing the electrodeposition of AlHf, AlW, and AlInSb alloys from the 66.7-33.3 mole percent AlCl3-1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ionic liquid.