Different Types of Electroplating Methods Including Limited Gold Result and Nickel This Includes Brass and Bronze Making.
by SHOE0007 in Workshop > Science
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Different Types of Electroplating Methods Including Limited Gold Result and Nickel This Includes Brass and Bronze Making.
Intro: Here I am explaining the methods of electroplating that I found worked very well including brass, tin coating, cobalt coating, manganese coating, etc.
Theory: Plating with chemicals can help with copper and steel (Limited use) on my tries with many chemicals.
Purpose: Yes to plate copper pipes, etc to different materials.
You may need a 100 to 500 dollar Powersupply, beakers and flasks and of course chemicals. I have also made a coating with magnesium sulfate and acetic acid with Nickel zinc clamp coating. It works quite well. A gray silver color.
Warning: This procedure involves electricity (low voltage), Propane stoves in a well-ventilated area, and corrosive chemicals like Lye and sometimes antifreeze are used. See this video to observe the effect for silver plating.
If you want to make silver(2) Oxide you need silver nitrate, zinc sulfate, and lye. Here an Old comment I made.
Here is a new method. I add potassium hydroxide to zinc sulfate in distilled water and add a bit of silver nitrate salt and HEAT to 90 degrees or 100 degrees C. The heat and the lye causes the KOH to convert to OH ions which react with the zinc to form a zinc layer. Finally, the silver replaces some zinc and this causes the black gray precipitate with silver. Silver layer forms with heat and electrical current between the lye. Some OH from Potassium hydroxide strips off some copper layer. Zinc-silver mixture on the copper. Don't add more than 1-2 g per L of silver nitrate. As INVENTOR said even with silver (2) oxide it tends to clump up with excess silver ions even with tap water. Yes with lye you can skip the distilled water. If you want silver nitrate (silver directly over copper) you need distilled water.
For sugar lye potassium permanganate plating over copper. Add 10 g lye (sodium hydroxide 99% or potassium hydroxide) and add 2 g max per L of potassium permanganate. This produces a black solution which you can add copper pipes through electrolysis method then use a propane stove method.
https://www.instructables.com/id/Chemical-Reaction...
Here what happens when you add Potassium Permanganate with sugar and lye.
2 K2MnO4 + 2 H2O >>>> 2 MnO2 + 4 KOH + O2 The Potassium Permanganate is reduced with Lye and sugar into Manganese dioxide and forms a green-blue color. See Pictures. This is an Electrolysis plating method. Also the sugar/Lye may oxidize the manganese dioxide into Manganese metal but I am not 100% sure about that. :)
You can add more KOH (90-99% or greater(( No aluminum in it) it may screw up your results. You can also add 99% sodium hydroxide. The heat was not always necessary and only gave slightly better results. :)
Here they explain how to make brass. You can do this with zinc metal, lye and distilled water (preferred over tap water). The Lye is very corrosive wear eye gears and you are using a hot plate to react the lye with Pyrex beakers with zinc powder 98%.
Gold plating. I have done it with limited success with gold cell phones without the battery in Concentrated 25-31.45% Hydrochloric acid with some hydrogen peroxide 3% to steel washers. I used a chrome solution (Chrome bisulfate ions in water). It plated but reversed in months. May not be worth all that money indeed. Warning: When you add Hydrochloric acid to waste from a cell phone you get gold mainly but you can get small 1% or less of Nickel and lead and mercury chloride 0.1%. Don't inhale fumes and wear Nitrile gloves or better and do this in a very ventilated area!! DO NOT DUMP POWERFUL ACID LIKE THIS DOWN THE DRAIN IT IS ILLEGAL TO DO AND DANGEROUS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT.
NIckel Plating: Yes I tried to contact and electric type and contact works better for nickel. Again make sure you have nickel chloride, not some other salt and remember it considered class 1 cancer-causing so be very very careful with it. It is corrosive and highly toxic too. Please see the warning label in the pictures. DO NOT DUMP IT DOWN THE DRAIN AND BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL WITH THE SOLUTIONS.
Apparently, you can do this with copper chloride with steel or cobalt chloride with copper or tin chloride.
I have tried sodium dichromate with magnesium sulfate..... over steel (Chrome steel works best) Don't add sodium chloride since it will produce or may produce chromyl chloride in small amounts. Electrolysis produces some hydrochloric acid which should not mix with any sodium dichromate (Na2Cr2O7). It turns it yellow but it a powder form and I don't recommend IT DUE TO CHROME SALTS LIKE THIS. They are classified as class 2 cancer causing. Not proven in humans but proven in animals.
Here some more info on Nickel plating. In a large beaker add several 3 pieces of normal aluminum foil and add it to a beaker with 300 ml of tap water (distilled works well too) and add 5 g of Nickel chloride 6 hydrate. Boil and allow the solution to partly break down. Then add the copper pipes or copper as you want to. Let the pipes being removed from solution dry for a bit and put them in aluminum foil and heat them up in a pan on a propane stove at low heat for 15-20 minutes flipping the aluminum with metal tongs every 4-5 minutes.
Method of making a gray luster silver color with copper. Carefully add 100 ml of 100% concentrated antifreeze to water with 10 g Lye, 2 g Vandanium oxide, 10 g iron sulfate with 1 g of Prussian blue. This helps creates a complex that I am not sure what the chemistry is (It may be vanadium oxide metal plated over copper with lye). DON'T INHALE VANADIUM V OXIDE SINCE IT IS HIGHLY TOXIC MSDS LEVEL 3 BY INHALATION. 0.5 g per kg is a dangerous dose. LD50 potentially. Wear a mask N95 to avoid inhaling the dust in case it spills only use 0.5-1 g max of the powder. Antifreeze (ethylene glycol is poisonous moderately). Wear gloves and PPE when handling it when adding it to lye.
Titanium sheets exposing them to 300-500 degrees C with a propane stove. Use ONLY IN A WELL VENTILATED AREA, RISK OF FIRE AND EXPLOSION IF DONE IMPROPERLY. Let the clamp carefully sit on the flame for 10-15 seconds or until the titanium turns (yellow, green, blue, purple etc). ALSO, RISK OF CARBON MONOXIDE POISONING IF DONE INDOORS TOO.
You can get good deals on 95% titanium alloys if there aren't any restrictions in your country. If there are some or all of these projects (through e-bay) may be difficult or impossible. Heating impure titanium may cause a titanium fire but this is often with powder titanium. Here a video on it. One on using titanium spoons and forks and one on fire risk (even if it is low). DO NOT INSERT IT INTO WATER!!!!
Discussion: Titanium alloy air plating is interesting. Also, nickel, gold (limited success), cobalt, bronze plating methods, all work very well. In the future, I may show Manganese plating too.
Final thoughts: If you want to repeat this it can get quite expensive 500-1000 dollars CAN to repeat some of the stuff. Also, You have to deal with most waste (Chrome, Silver, Nickel, Gold acid, Vanadium lye antifreeze, etc) as hazardous and don't dump it down the drain.
THANKS FOR READING THIS INSTRUCTABLE. ALTHOUGH IT MAY NOT BE POSSIBLE TO MAKE ALL OF THESE THINGS IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS YOU WANT ME TO ASK LET ME KNOW. YOU CAN MAKE INDIVIDUAL JEWELRY FROM THESE PARTS TOO.