Electroplating
Electroplating is the process of plating one metal onto another by hydrolysis, most commonly for decorative purposes or to prevent corrosion of a metal. There are also specific types of electroplating such as copper plating, silver plating, and chromium plating. Electroplating allows manufacturers to use inexpensive metals such as steel or zinc for the majority of the product and then apply different metals on the outside to account for appearance, protection, and other properties desired for the product. The surface can be a metal or even plastic. In this process the cathode would be the piece to be plated and the anode would be either a sacrificial anode or an inert anode, normally either platinum or carbon (graphite form). Sometimes plating occurs on racks or barrels for efficiency when plating many products.
Essentially any electrically conductive surface can be electroplated. Special techniques, such as coating with metallic-loaded paints or silver-reduced spray, can be used to make nonconductive surfaces, such as plastic, electrically conductive for electroplating. The metals and alloy substrates electroplated on a commercial scale are cadmium, chromium, cobalt, copper, gold, indium, iron, lead, nickel, platinum group metals, silver, tin, zinc, brass, bronze, many gold alloys, lead-tin, nickel-iron, nickel-cobalt, nickel-phosphorus, tin-nickel, tin-zinc, zinc-nickel, zinc-cobalt, and zinc-iron. Electroplated materials are generally used for a specific property or function, although there may be some overlap, e. g., a material may be electroplated for decorative use as well as for corrosion resistance. The essential components of an electroplating process are an electrode to be plated (the cathode or substrate), a second electrode to complete the circuit (the anode), an electrolyte containing the metal ions to be deposited, and a direct current power source.
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