Metal finishing Q&As since 1989

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Electroplating Platinum on Gold

Looking for a good electrolyte and current density to do platinum electroplating on a gold surface. The electroplated platinum pad will be used as an auxiliary electrode in electrochemisty.

Dr. Jonathan Vickers
electrochemist - Fort Collins, Colorado
September 9, 2009

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Hi. You may already realize this and have taken it into consideration, but researchers who are not from the plating industry often don't know it, so I'll say it: the usual way to do electroplating is to buy proprietary processes from vendors who have developed them, rather than to try to develop your own chemistry. This is especially true in precious metal plating where the cost of the proprietaries doesn't have much impact on the cost of the plating solution.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
September 10, 2009

I would see if I could not get a suitable electrode from one of the many probe mfg's. If not, I would send it out to a good plating shop to be plated. It avoids all of the problems with learning how to do it right.

James Watts
- Navarre, Florida
September 11, 2009

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From the little bit of looking around I have done, purchasing a proprietary solution was an option, but we need very little of it and are not doing a lot of plating. We are only plating a surface area of 0.2 cm^2. And I was hoping to not have to by a large volume of electrolyte. I personally have some experience with metal finishing doing anodizing and a little bit of Nickel plating as a hobby. I'm going to try a Chloroplatinic Acid in HCl electrolyte and just see how it turns out.

Jonathan Vickers
- Fort Collins, Colorado
September 14, 2009