Manganese electroplating

A. Hi Chris. For this problem please try to get access to Brenner's "Electrodeposition of Alloys". Manganese is extremely electronegative and very difficult to plate, but it is not completely impossible. Good luck.

Ted Mooney, P.E. RET finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

A. Manganese plating solution:

manganese sulphate....100 gm
ammonium sulphate.....75 gm
ammonium rhodanide...60 gm
up to 28 A/dm2, 25 °C temp.

According to Praktische Galvanotechnik/Saulgau 1997.

A. Chris, Brenner suggests a lead-silver anode, but it really might be worth struggling to get access to the book because manganese, being difficult and tricky to plate, it is almost impossible to answer even simple questions with a reply of manageable length. For example, while Brenner says to try an anode of lead-silver, he then goes on to say "but be aware that ...." and many paragraphs about bags and diaphragms and pH differences between catholyte and anolyte, etc., then follow. Good luck.

Ted Mooney, P.E. RET finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

A. For pure Mn, it should be not so difficult. Apply a higher current or voltage is necessary.

Some literature about Mn deposition are published in Journal of the Electrochemical Society [www.electrochem.org/dl/jes/]. I am working on Mn-Co co-deposition, and have a paper published recently in Journal of Power Sources.

----
Ed. note: Mr. Wu's article is abstracted and and full text can be purchased at www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775307025645

A. First, you say nothing about cleaning or activation steps. Both are required since SS oxidizes fairly rapidly.
Next, You really need to have a Woods strike. I like the formulation with higher HCl and lower Nickel chloride than most.

Get a copy of Safranek's book Properties of Electrodeposited Metals and Alloys [link is to info about book at Amazon].

Lowenheim's "Modern Electroplating" [link is to product info at Amazon] has a tiny bit, but may help.

hi, I can't take a hold of nitrates nor do I know any methods of forming any sizable metal compounds, but from what I have seen so far your methods involve metal ions that coat on top of a less reactive metal.

So why is it that you guys use nitrate solutions instead of an ionic solution?
What I do is perform electrolysis to collect an oxide (copper is my favorite), then add hydrochloric acid to form an ionic solution.
Copper (blue - green liquid depending on solution's concentration).

Also you should know that for an absolute coating you will require a current (I use would use the same metal as in solution, so if using copper both anode and cathode should be copper, and make sure that the metal being coated onto is less reactive then the metal used to coat,
e.g., copper plating aluminum is not possible because aluminum is more reactive than copper, whereas copper plating iron is possible because iron is about as reactive as copper.

But most importantly, write an exact chemical equation and a hypothesis of what might happen.

So, key point:
- current through ionic/nitrate solutions
- reactivity
- chemical equation and hypothesis

This response has been given by a secondary chemistry student, who has knowledge and experience in the process of electrolysis and electroplating. Thank you and I hope that this was useful.

cya and have a good time.

Thanks, Guillaume. I'm a bit confused because I didn't see anyone mention nitrate solutions, then you asked why they suggested nitrates :-)

Although I didn't completely understand you descriptions, you may be right that ionic liquids could be a better approach for plating manganese than traditional aqueous plating baths.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E. RET finishing.com Brick, New Jersey