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Letter 16052
Valencies effect on electroplating
quality
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I am completing an assessment for science regarding
electroplating. I am attempting to electroplate four brass keys with
other metals. I was wondering if the quality of the job has a
relationship with the valency of the element.
Please explain,
Jaime Auton
- Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
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Your question is a little bit vague, Jamie. Offhand I know that
electroplating is successfully done out of salts where the metal has
a valence of +1, +2, +3, +4, and +6. I'd have to think about a while
in order to say whether electroplating is conducted where the metal
valence is +5 or +7.
But certainly the quality of the job has a relationship with the
valence in many ways. For example, you can't successfully plate +2
tin out of a stannate bath where the valence is supposed to be +4;
you can't successfully plate out the +3 chromium that is a
contaminant in a standard +6 chromium bath. Further, you can't
successfully plate noble metals out of simple salts onto baser metals
(for example you won't successfully plate copper onto steel out of a
copper sulphate bath where the copper is +2); rather, you need to
plate it out of a cyanide bath (copper valence +1) or pyrophosphate
bath where it is complexed.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
finishing.com Inc. - Brick,
NJ
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