Electroplating is the process of depositing desired metal on another metal by using electricity.

In this article we will talk in detail about electroplating with some demonstrations and uses of electroplating. Best example of electroplating can be seen on artificial jewellery. On artificial jewellery actual metal is coated with another metal which appears and therefore, jewellery appears like gold.

To demonstrate this by yourself perform following activity–
Collect copper sulphate, two copper plates of size 10cm × 4cm, dilute sulphuric acid, sandpaper and battery for experiment. Take 250ml of distilled water in clean and dry beaker. Add and dissolve two teaspoon full of copper sulphate in it. To make solution more conducting add few drops of dilute sulphuric acid in the beaker. Now thake clean copper plates with sandpaper. Rinse these plates with water and dry them. With the help of wires connect copper plate to the battery nd dip them in the copper sulphate solution. Keep it in the solution for 15 minutes and pass electricity through the solution.

After 15 minutes remove the electrodes from the solution. You can observe a reddish brown coating on one plate which was connected to negative terminal of battery. This occurs because, by passing the current, copper and sulphate get dissociate from copper sulphate. Being positively charge copper ions gets attracted towards negatively charged copper plate. Here, ions receives electrons and thus becomes neutral. At the same time, electrons get pulled by positive terminal to plate connected to negative terminal. This process continues as long as current flows through solution making a coat of copper on the plate connected to negative terminal. Electroplating is common application of chemical effects of electric current.

Uses of Electroplating

• It is widely used method in industries for making metallic coatings. Coating is done for many different purposes. E.g. Chromium has shiny appearance, has corrosion resistance ability and does not get scratches easily. Therefore, objects such as car parts, bath taps, kitchen gas burners, bicycle handlebars, rims of wheels are all coated with chromium. Indeed one can make whole part made of chromium instead of just a coat but due to expensive price of chromium it may not be economical. Jewellery makers electroplate silver and gold on less expensive metals. In this way ornaments can be made with less expensive prices. Tin cans are used for storing food. Basically these cans have coating of tin onto iron. However, tin is very less reactive than iron therefore with the coating of tin food does not come in contact with iron and so remain protected from getting spoilt.
• For the construction of dams, bridges iron is the primary material, but rusting is the major problem to use it. Rusting is the corrosion of iron so as to degrade its properties like strength, shine etc. A coating of zinc deposited on iron. This helps to protect it from rusting.

Keywords: Electroplating, Corrosion, Uses of electroplating, Rusting

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