You’ll probably never trust me after this but I’ll post it anyway. Electroplating: is the deposition of a metal coating on an object by using a negative charge. What you need: A glass dish or tray A battery or some other low voltage DC power source. A dissolving solution: Distilled Vinegar with a pinch of salt or sugar or both. The metal object you want to plate. (Say a copper penny) An object made of the pure metal you wish to plate with (a source of zinc) Want your Looking at in the first pic is a shot glass filed with vinegar. The copper penny is hocked to the negative side of the battery. A zinc source (aka a sanded penny) is attached to the positive side of the battery. I put a peace of cardboard in between the two. They can not touch one another. When you’re done, use a polishing compound to clean off all the black gunk and make it shine. Basically the metal you wish to coat with will dissolve in the mild acid solution. At the same time a currant is flowing from one side to the other. When the coating metal gets near the copper penny the currant stick it to the surface. You don’t have to use vinegar ether. Mixing a bit of salt and sugar in tap water will work, as will as soda pop. I happened to use plan old apple juice to copper plate the dime. Note: silver, gold, chromium, nickel and other metals need strong acids and toxic chemicals. So stick with zinc and copper. Safety: don’t drink the dissolving solution. If the two sides make contact the circuit will be complete, causing the power source to over heat and it could start a fire or make the battery blow up. The little gas bubbles are hydrogen gas, so no smoking. Enjoy.
Thanks. I am currently bouncing around the idea of become an science teacher someday and I always remembered doing cool thing such as this but I can never rember the specifics. Once again thanks for the information.
I got in to anodizing when I stared playing paintball while back. It led to electroplating silver and copper parts for someone. It’s funny how some useless tidbit of knowledge from high school comes around and hits you square in the face some times. The sciences of electroplating is neat like Pattern plating and something called “Electroplatenic (spelling) micro welding”.
I never thought of plating something else. Now that you brought it up I dabble in wood working as well and some of the accent peices I would like to add are not available in town. I wonder If I could make them out of copper and plate them with nickle.
I tried this a while back, with my 5V .2A adaptor through about 3 inches of water. I was trying to screw with some salt crystal formation using an aluminum electode.... Allow all the water to dissolve at a nautral rate (over approx a week) with the power on 24/7.... Also tried atomic decomposition using a carbon electrode in distilled water through a pyrex beaker using 15-20kV..... Not much. I may want to try it again, if anyone is interested in the process or what happens. I like to show off my gear
Nickel is corrosive resistant so vinegar may not work. You can try leaving some nickels sitting in a vinegar solution for a few days and giving it a try. At this point I don’t what to recommend chemicals that could get any readers hurt. There are some home nickel plating kits you can buy. Sure, post away.
I tried this, but couldn't get it to work, maybe you could help. I sanded the copper off of two pennies. I put vinager, 1t salt, 1t sugar and mixed it. I dropped in a zinc coin overnight (I read somewhere you had to do this). I took out the zinc penny. I hooked up 2 AA's to the other zinc penny and a separate copper penny. I had cleaned the copper penny so it was shiny. The zinc penny started to bubble and corrode. The copper penny started to turn gray. I left it overnight and the copper penny was totally gray. I took the copper penny out and the gray color (zinc) rubbed off right on my hand. The penny was slightly duller, but not much. All fo the zinc came off. Any ideas what I did wrong?
I have been at a few underground copper mines where highly acidic (sulfuric) water issues from mine entrances. The mine waters are saturated with dissolved metals, primarily copper. The water appears to be clear, but you can plate iron objects by placing them in the mine effluent. The iron atoms in a shovel or axe dissolve into solution, atom by atom, as copper cations precipitate on the iron object. Rusty old shovels become beautiful copper shovels. If the pH of the water is raised to 8.0 or so, the iron usually precipitates as iron hydroxides (yellow boy, or rusty goo). Placing scrap iron, tin cans and such, into acidic mine effluent is one simple way to remove toxic copper ions from the water. Iron is used to remove arsenic from water also. Most common metals have ionic properties that allow them to replace other metals in solution. That is why engineers use anodes to protect big power lines, boat keels, and automotive engines from galvanic erosion. Using sugar in your anodizing solution makes no sense. Use an acid with your experiment. It also matters which pole of the battery you use to plate stuff. I believe that the anode gives up the metal, whereas the cathode attracts cations. I could easily be wrong because I have not thought of this is a long time. If my fragmented memory serves me correctly, you can plate metal in layers. You might start with nickle, go to copper, silver, and end up with gold. Not sure anymore.
It sounds like your doing it right. It only took 15min or so for me to plate the copper penny with zinc. The only thing I can think of is the zinc layer was to thin. Supposedly the sugar is added to increase the conductivity of the solution. sugar was in the recipe I found, so I used it.
