A major cause of the plague of faulty capacitors was industrial espionage in connection with the theft of an electrolyte formula. A materials scientist working for Rubycon in Japan left the company with the secret electrolyte formula for the ZA and ZL series of Rubycon and began working for a Chinese company. The scientist then developed a copy of this water-based electrolyte. After that some staff members who defected this company copied this formula incomplete, and began to undersell the pricing of the Japanese manufacturers with this electrolyte to many of the aluminum electrolytic manufacturers in Taiwan.
[1][43] The subsequent electrolyte produced lacked important proprietary ingredients which were essential to the long-term stability of the capacitors,
[4][6] and was unstable when packaged in a finished aluminum capacitor. The bad formulation of electrolyte allowed the unimpeded formation of hydroxide and produced hydrogen gas.
[33]