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Electroplating: The different metals and practical applications

Hi!

I'm a tenth grade student and I'm sorry to say that my chemistry teacher is going nuts and making us start our science fair projects ASAP. I want to do a science project on electroplating. It popped up on a list of ideas and all it said was "the use of different metals and the practical applications".

Does that mean that electroplating will show me how to use different metals? By reading your previous posts, it looks as though electroplating just changes the properties of a substance.

I need help, and I need it soon... electroplating sparks my interest.
But I'm still in the dark as to what exactly it is ... If you have any books to recommend, PLEASE DO!

Thanx a bundle.

Makkah A.
student, North Atlanta High - Atlanta, Ga, USA
2003

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What happens with electroplating, Makkah, is you apply a thin coating of a metal onto an object so that the surface is a different material than the bulk of the object. For example, truck bumpers are made of steel to be strong. Steel is a great metal for that purpose and is inexpensive. But steel rusts and is unattractive. So a thin coating of nickel and then chromium are electroplated onto it to make it look nice, and keep it from rusting. But chrome would be much too expensive to make the whole bumper out of, and is brittle like glass. So electroplating lets you have the advantages of steel as the base and chrome as the surface.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
2003