ELECTROPLATING

Hayagreev. C
VIII B

Electroplating is basically the process of plating a metal onto the other

by hydrolysis mostly to prevent corrosion of metal or for decorative
purposes. The process uses an electric current to reduce dissolved metal
cations to develop a lean coherent metal coating on the electrode. The part
to be coated acts as the cathode (negative electrode) of an electrolytic cell.
The electrolyte is a solution of a salt of the metal to be coated; and
the anode (positive electrode) is usually either a block of that metal, or of
some inert conductive material. The current is provided by an
external power supply.

Electroplating is widely used in industry and decorative arts to improve the

surface qualities of objects—such as resistance
to abrasion and corrosion, lubricity, reflectivity, electrical conductivity, or
appearance. It is used to build up thickness on undersized or worn-out parts,
or to manufacture metal plates with complex shape, a process
called electroforming. It is used to deposit copper and other conductors in
forming printed circuit boards, and copper interconnects in integrated
circuits. It is also used to purify metals such as copper.

The term "electroplating" may also be used occasionally for processes that
use an electric current to achieve oxidation of anions on to a solid
substrate, as in the formation of silver chloride on silver wire to
make silver/silver-chloride (AgCl) electrodes.
Electro polishing, a process that uses an electric current to remove metal
cations from the surface of a metal object, may be thought of as the
opposite of electroplating.

The electrolyte should contain positive ions (cations) of the metal to be

deposited. These cations are reduced at the cathode to the metal in the zero
valence state. For example, the electrolyte for copper plating can be a
solution of copper sulphate, which dissociates into Cu 2 cations and SO4
anions. At the cathode, the Cu2 is reduced to metallic copper by gaining two
electrons.
When the anode is made of the coating metal, the opposite reaction may
occur there, turning it into dissolved cations. For example, copper would be
oxidized at the anode to Cu2 by losing two electrons. In this case, the rate at
which the anode is dissolved will be equal to the rate at which the cathode is
plated and thus the ions in the electrolyte bath are continuously replenished
by the anode. The net result is the effective transfer of metal from the anode
to the cathode.
The anode may instead be made of a material that resists electrochemical
oxidation, such as lead or carbon. Oxygen, hydrogen peroxide, or some
other by products are then produced at the anode instead. In this case, ions
of the metal to be plated must be periodically replenished in the bath as
they are drawn out of the solution.
The plating is most commonly a single metallic element, not an alloy.
However, some alloys can be electrodeposited, notably brass and solder.
Plated "alloys" are not "true alloys" (solid solutions), but rather they are tiny
crystals of the elemental metals being plated. In the case of plated solder, it
is sometimes deemed necessary to have a true alloy, and the plated solder
is melted to allow the tin and lead to combine into a true alloy. The true alloy
is more corrosion resistant than the as-plated mixture.

Electroplating changes the chemical, physical, and mechanical properties of

the work piece. An example of a chemical change is when nickel plating
improves corrosion resistance. An example of a physical change is a change
in the outward appearance. An example of a mechanical change is a change
in tensile strength or surface hardness which is a required attribute in
tooling industry. Electroplating of acid gold on underlying copper- or nickel-
plated circuits reduces contact resistance as well as surface hardness.
Copper-plated areas of mild steel act as a mask if case hardening of such
areas are not desired. Tin-plated steel is chromium-plated to prevent dulling
of the surface due to oxidation of tin. Electroplating, or electro less plating
may be used as a way to render a metal part radioactive, by using an
aqueous solution prepared from nickel–phosphorus concentrates which
contain radioactive hypophosphite32 ions.

There are a number of alternative processes to produce metallic coatings on

solid substrates that do not involve electrolytic reduction:
 Electroplating uses a bath containing metal ions and chemicals that
will reduce them to the metal by redox reactions. The reaction should
be autocatalytic, so that new metal will be deposited over the growing
coating, rather than precipitated as a powder through the whole bath
at once. Electro less processes are widely used to deposit nickel-
phosphorus or nickel-boron alloys for wear and corrosion
resistance, silver for mirror-making, copper for PCBs, and many
more. A major advantage of these processes over electroplating is
that they can produce coatings of uniform thickness over surfaces of
 arbitrary shape, even inside holes, and the substrate need not be
electrically conducting. Another major benefit is that they don't need
power sources or especially shaped anodes. Disadvantages include
lower deposition speed, consumption of relatively expensive
chemicals, and limited choice of coating metals.
 Immersion coating processes exploit displacement reactions in which
the substrate metal is oxidized to soluble ions while ions of the
coating metal get reduced and deposited in its place. This process is
limited to very thin coatings, since the reaction stops after the
substrate has been completely covered. Nevertheless, it has some
important applications, such as the electro less nickel immersion
gold(ENIG) process used to obtain gold-plated electrical contacts on
PCBs.
 Sputtering uses an electron beam or a plasma to eject microscopic
particles of the metal onto the substrate in a vacuum.
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