The process used for coating a metal object with a thin layer of another metal by using an electric current is termed as ‘electroplating’. This tends to dissolve the metals partially and create a chemical bond between both the metals.

This coating with the help of electroplating tends to be around 0.0002 inches in thickness. This electroplating creates the bond on a permanent basis on the surface of the base metal. Normally, this plating does not chip off or fall off but can wear off after a specific period with the constant wear and tear.

Few Steps Involved in Gold Electroplating:

For the apt application of Gold Electroplating, there are specific steps followed in the process.

1. Preparing the Surface:

For Gold electroplating, the surface that needs the plating is supposed to be clean. There should not be any traces of grime or any oil. This piece also needs to be polished. The preparation of the surface includes sandblasting, polishing, stripping, tumbling, and so on. Thus, it is important to opt for a platter that has the required knowledge and information of gold electroplating. A combination of solvents, water, acid etch, alkaline cleaners and abrasive materials are used. A common method used for cleaning is using the non-acid ultrasonic bath or probably the acid one. This tends to improve the adherence and keep the planks free of any contaminants.

2. Cleaning:

The next step in gold electroplating is cleaning the metal with the help of ultrasonic cleaning, electro cleaning or steaming. This step is required for the cleaning process, ensures that the base metal is absolutely clean and free of any grease. This can ensure quality results with the gold plating.

3. Rinsing:

Rinsing is important to ensure that there are no cleaning agents used remaining in the metal base.

4. Strike:

A flash layer or a strike layer can adhere a nickel layer plating to the metal. The buffer layer is important for improving the bonding between the underlying surface and the plating. Gold electroplating on copper can allow the copper to migrate outside the gold layer, creating tarnish or spots. Thus, this buffer layer is essential. This step of strike can create a barrier between the plated metal and the base metal, which is reactive.

5. Base Coating:

Gold electroplating generally uses nickel, as the base coat. It is possible to have multiple layers of gold electroplating done on one single piece. A silver article, which is gold electroplated normally, has layers of nickel, copper, and gold on it.

6. Final Coating:

The specific metal for gold electroplating is submerged in the plating solution with a careful control of the temperature, voltage, and time. Only the professionals should handle this, as different metals have different requirements of voltage and temperature.

You find the different articles are hung from a cathode bar. This is a pole, which has an electrical charge on the negative side passing through it. The piece, which requires this gold electroplating also has a negative charge. An electric charge is applied to the tank these articles of base metal are submerged in. Positively charged ions are attracted to the negative charge on the base metal. This leads to gold electroplating.

Benefits of Gold Electroplating:

Gold electroplating ensures the metal parts coated can last for a longer period. This means, there are fewer chances of any replacement. These plated parts can withstand harsh conditions and work out to be beneficial. Jewellery, which is gold electroplated, has a better aesthetic appeal. There is no need of investing a lot of money on real gold. As there is no risk of corrosion, gold electroplating works aptly for the electronics field.