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Letter 4100
Electroplating onto Aluminum with Copper
Sulphate, Nitrate, or Chloride
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I am doing a project on electroplating and I'm going to use Copper
Sulfate, Copper Nitrate, and Copper Chloride. I'm going to see which
is more efficient in plating aluminum. I have ordered 100 g of each.
I will have to do 10 trials of each. I was wondering what would be a
constant voltage I could use and how do I calculate the amount of
water to mix with each to get a 1 mol solution. Also how long should
each trial last.
Trey McCants
- Seneca, SC
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Uh, Trey, uh who designed this experiment? :-)
I don't know why you intend to use aluminum, but . . .
You cannot plate onto aluminum without special techniques and
chemicals you don't have access to. Further, you cannot electroplate
a more noble metal (copper) onto a metal which is less noble (zinc,
aluminum, or steel) without totally screwing up your experiment
because it will spontaneously plate out without external electricity.
Ideally you should use real silver dimes or quarters as your
substrate, although nickels or modern dimes or nickels will suffice.
A 1-1/2 volt D-cell battery will do fine. You ideally should put a
resistor in series to limit the current to no more than about 5 amps
per square foot, and use a pocket milliammeter to measure and verify
the current.
I'm sure you know what a molar solution is and are really asking
the formula weight of these three salts. Well, copper sulphate is
CuSO4.5H2O; copper chloride is CuCl2.2H2O; I don't know how hydrated
copper nitrate is, but the formula will come with the material.
The electroplating should probably go on for about 15 minutes, and
Faraday's Law ("96,500 amp-seconds will deposit 1 gram equivalent
weight") will predict the thickness of the copper layer for you. Good
luck.
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Ted Mooney, P.E.
finishing.com
Brick, New Jersey
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Dear Sir:
I was planning to have a copper plating on an iron steel. I tried
using sulfuric acid and copper chloride solution but the output is a
black coating. What should I use to have a clear copper plating and
what is the typical current and voltage in plating with copper.
David CabaÒal
- Iloilo City, Philippines
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Cyanide copper plate at 10-30 amperes/square foot, 1-5 volts.
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