Home page About it en es Search

Home > Theory > Chemistry > Electroplating Projects

Audio
Electroplating Microcontrollers

1 - Overview
Electronic theory
Electroplating is the procedure that allows to cover the surface of a material
conducting electricity with another conducting material. It's used mainly in the industrial Measurements
field to cover metal objects with other more precious or noble metals. It's obtained by
submerging the object to be covered in a solution prepared on purpose, which, through
the action of the electric current, creates a chemical reaction which deposes on the Theory
object a layer of the new metal. Chemistry

1.1 - The covering metals

The most used covering metals are gold, silver, copper, nickel, chrome and zinc. Many Tag
of these metals have the property of being resistant to corrosion and wear, and they are
used to protect the object and make it last longer. Some of them can also improve the Audio (8)
aesthetic aspect, as chrome, which looks like a shining metal (the bathroom sinks are an Chemistry (2)
example: they are made steel, which is opaque, covered with chrome). Other metals can
Electroplating (1)
make the object more valuable, such as gold or silver. More in general, the covering
metals used for electroplating are usually pure elements, but sometimes metal alloys Electrotyping (1)
can be used, such as brass. Embedded devices (2)

1.2 - The objects to be covered Energetic efficiency (1)

There are no limitations to the shape and the sizes of the objects to be covered. Since Esp32 (1)
the covering process takes place by submerging the object into a liquid solution, it's
Esp32-c6 (1)
possible to cover parts that with other methods, such as painting, would be difficult to
reach. The only necessary condition to perform the process is that the object can Esp8266 (2)
conduct electricity. According to this condition, a distinction can be performed between Filter (3)
electroplating and electrotyping. Electroplating deals with conducting objects, while
Impedance (1)
electrotyping deals with non-conducting ones.
Lab intruments (2)
1.3 - The electrodes and the electroplating bath
Measurements (2)
The liquid solution in which the process takes place is called electroplating bath. This
solution is typically formed by water and by the salt of the metal to be deposed. In some Microcontrollers (2)
cases, such as for the precious metals, baths with cyanide are used. Their usage is Microphone (4)
anyway complicated, since cyanide is highly poisonous and the industries which use it
Mixer (4)
must have special permissions and dedicated technicians.
Power supply (1)
The electrodes are the conducting elements submerged into the solution which allow
Preamplifier (3)
the electric current to flow through the solution and therefore the electroplating to take
place. The electrode connected to the negative pole of the battery is called cathode, and Programming (1)
it is the object to be covered. The electrode connected to the positive pole of the battery Subwoofer (3)
is called anode, and it can be made of the same material which is going to be deposed
on the target object; it can be also made of another metal or of graphite.
1.4 - The deposition speed Transformer (1)
The metal deposition speed on the objects changes according to various factors.
These are the main ones:

1. Solution concentration: the more the solution is concentrated, the more the
deposition is performed quickly. A more concentrated solution means that more
solute (in this case the salt of the metal to be deposed, or the cyanide
compound) was dissolved into water. There is anyway a limit for the
concentration of the solution, over which the the solute won't dissolve into the
solvent any more, but will fall on the bottom of the container, or will float. In this
case, the solution is saturated: the solvent isn't able to dissolve the solute any
more.
2. Electric current: the more electric current flows into the electrodes and in the
solution, the more the deposition takes place quickly. To increase the electric
current which flows in the circuit, two elements can be increased: the surface of
the electrodes or the voltage supplied by the generator. There is anyway a limit to
the current flowing into the circuit: over this value, the electroplating chemical
reaction doesn't take place any more, since the high current creates other
reactions which prevail on the electroplating one.

1.5 - The quantities used

Electroplating can be performed for small objects, like knick-knacks or jewellery, as
well as for big structures, like car bodies. According to the size of the object to be
covered, the physical quantities can change. The electroplating baths can have high or
low concentrations, according to the used substances and materials, while the currents
range from milliAmperes for small objects to tens of Amperes for big baths.

2 - The practical procedure

The process of plating a metal object through electroplating can be divided in three
parts: the preparation of the surface of the object, the bath and the final clearing of the
dry surface.

2.1 - The surface pre-processing: the picking

Electroplating requires the surface to be covered to be perfectly clean. The impurities
won't indeed allow the metal to depose and stick correctly to the object. This operation
is called picking. We can distinguish two phases:

1. Mechanical cleaning: it's performed through mechanical methods involving, for

example, metal brushes. It has the objective of eliminating the biggest impurities,
such as rust or other industrial processing residuals. It leaves, anyway, the
surface not perfectly clean, with shades and other impurities.
2. Chemical cleaning: it's performed through chemical reactions, mainly through
strong acids and bases, such as sulphuric acid, clorhydric acid or sodium
hydroxide. Since the object is totally submerged into the cleaning liquid, the
cleaning is total and complete.

The two phases are often subsequent, even if sometimes only the chemicals cleaning
is required.

2.2 - The electroplating bath

The cathode, which is the object to be covered, and the anode, which is another
conducting element, are submerged into the the electroplating bath. The two electrodes
are connected to a current generator. When it is turned on, the current starts to flow
through the electrodes in the solution, and the metal begins to depose. After a specific
time, computed through many different factors, the generator is powered off, and the
object covered with the desired metal is taken off the solution.

2.3 - The post-processing

After the electroplating, the object must be washed, to delete the residuals of the bath,
and sometimes processed furthermore, for example with polishing.

3 - The chemical process

Electroplating can be performed with many solutions, which allow to depose different
metals onto the target objects. In this section a solution with cupric sulfate will be used.
It is an intense blue salt which can be found in gardening shops and which is normally
used in agriculture to protect plants from mushrooms, seaweeds and bacteria. The
result of electroplating with such chemical product is the deposition of a thin copper
layer on the object submerged into the solution. Please remember that cupric sulfate is
a poisonous substance and should be handled with care.

Figura 1: The image resumes the elements involved into the chemical redox reaction used into the
electroplating process.

3.1 - Premise: the ionic bond

The ionic bond is a kind of chemical bond which takes place typically between two
elements with an electro-negativity higher than 1.9, that is between elements usually far
on the periodic table, typically a metal and a non-metal. The result of a ionic bond is
usually a salt, which is indeed the union of a metal with a non-metal. In case of salts the
element with the lower electro-negativity (the metal) gives to the element with higher
electro-negativity (the non-metal) one or more electrons, which go into the orbitals of the
new atom. At this point the two elements aren't neutral any more, but they are ions: the
atom which gave an electron becomes a cation, that is a positive ion, while the atom
that received the electron becomes an anion, that is a negative ion (please note that the
terms cation and anion refer to polarities inverted with respect to cathode and anode).
The cation and the anion attract themselves, due to their opposite charges, and
therefore remain bound, creating the salt. In the example considered in this article the
salt is the cupric sulphate, with composition CuSO4. The cation is Cu2+, which gives two

electrons to the anion SO2-4.

3.2 - The current

First consider that the electric current in a metal is physically caused by a flux of
electrons going out from the negative pole of a generator and entering the positive pole
of the generator. The real flux of electrons is therefore opposite to the conventional
direction normally used in electronics, which assumes that the current goes out from the
positive pole of the generator.

3.3 - The process

The chemical reaction involved in the electroplating is a redox, since the copper atoms
loose and takes electrons. When the generator is turned on, it makes available the
electrons to the cathode, connected to the negative pole, and it accepts electrons at the
anode, connected to the positive pole. In case of the reaction considered here, the
copper at the anode looses two electrode, which go to the generator, and becomes a
cation Cu2+. This process takes the name of oxidation. The cupric sulfate CuSO4

dissolved into the solution breaks its ionic bond, becoming the cation Cu2+ and the
anion SO2-4. The anion SO2-4 binds itself to the cation Cu2+ born at the anode, and

recreates the cupric sulfate CuSO4. The cation Cu2+ which was part of the cupric
sulfate initially dissolved into the solution goes towards the cathode, where it takes two
electrons, supplied by the generator, and becomes a neutral element, deposing on the
object. This process is called reduction.

Basically, the reaction implies a copper transfer: the anode copper leaves the
electrode and binds to the cupric sulfate dissolved into the solution, while the copper
initially bound to the cupric sulfate leaves the compound and deposes onto the cathode.
At the end of the electroplating, the configuration is the following:

1. The anode, made of copper, reduced, even if only a little bit, its size, because it
gave its atoms to the cupric sulfate.

2. The concentration of cupric sulfate into the solution remains unchanged, since
the copper atoms that the salt gave to the cathode were substituted by the atoms
received from the anode.

3. The cathode, which is the object to be covered, increased, even if only a little bit,
its size, since it received on its surface the copper atoms.
4. From the point of view of the generator, the net sum of electrons is zero: it
received two electrons at the anode, but it gave two of them at the cathode.

Totale: 5ms

Copyright 2014-2024 electroimc.com