Electro-coating gold onto at Pd-coated tube by dissolving an iron wire at REB Research.

Here’s a simple trick for electroplating noble metals: gold, silver, copper, platinum. I learned this trick at Brooklyn Technical High School some years ago, and I still use it at REB Research as part of our process to make hydrogen permeation barriers, and sulfur tolerant permeation membranes.  It’s best used to coat reasonably inactive, small objects,  e.g. to coat copper on a nickel or silver on a penny for a science fair.

As a first step, you make a dilute acidic solution of the desired noble metal. Dissolve a gram or so of copper sulphate, silver nitrate, or gold chloride per 250 ml of water. Make sure the solution is acidic using pH paper, add acid if needed aiming for a pH of 3 to 4. Place some solution into a test tube or beaker of a size that will hold the object you want to coat. As a next step, attach an iron or steel wire to the object, I typically use bailing wire from the hardware store wrapped several times about the top of the object, and run the length of the object; see figure. Place the object into your solution and wait for 5 to 30 minutes. Coating works without the need for any other electric source or any current control.

The iron wire creates the electricity used in electroplating the noble metal. Iron has a higher electro-motive potential than hydrogen and hydrogen has a higher potential than the noble metals. In acid solution, the iron wire dissolves but (it’s hoped) the substrate does not. Each iron atom gives up two electrons, becoming Fe⁺⁺. Some of these electrons go on to reduce hydrogen ions making H₂ (2H⁺ + 2e^– –> H₂), but most should go to reduce the noble metal ions in the solution to form a coat of metallic gold, silver, or copper on both the wire and the object. See an example of how I do calculations regarding voltage, electron number, and Gibbs free energy.

Transferring electrons requires you have good electrical contact between the wire and the object. Most of the noble metal coats the object, not the wire since the object is bigger, typically. Thanks to my teachers at Brooklyn Technical High School for teaching me. For a uniform coat, it helps to run the wire down parallel to the entire length of tube; I think this is a capacitance, field effect. For a larger object, you may want several wires if you are plating a larger object. For a thicker coat, I found you are best off making many thin coats and heating them. This reduces tension forces in the coat, I think.

The picture shows a step in the process we use making our sulfur-resistant hydrogen permeation membranes (buy them here), used, e.g. to concentrate impurities in a hydrogen stream for improved gas chromatography. The next step is to dissolve the gold or copper into the palladium.

Go here for a great periodic table cup from REB Research, or for the rest of our REB Research products. I occasionally make silver-coated pennies for schoolchildren, but otherwise use this technology only for in-house production.

R.E. Buxbaum, July 20, 2013.