What is Electroplating?

Electroplating has been around for decades and has evolved from an art to a precise science. Electroplating is also considered to be part of engineering and has a wide array of applications in many fields of engineering. Over the past few decades the electroplating process has been used in the manufacture of electrical and electronic parts, which include optics, micro and macro, sensors and opto-electronics as well. Electroplating is hugely significant in gold plating, silver plating and other metal plating processes. Electroplating is also known as electro-deposition and it is used to produce a metallic coating on the surface of an object using electric current. The process of electroplating requires a negative charge to be added to the object being electroplated. This object is subsequently immersed in an ionic solution carrying positive charge. The positively charged ions are attracted to the negatively charged object and in this manner electroplating is achieved. Types of electroplating The electroplating process is used for coating any type of object with certain metals like nickel, gold, silver, aluminum and chromium to name a few. There are four types of electroplating processes. The type of process to be used depends primarily on the object to be coated, the particular properties to be enhanced and the metal which is going to be used for the electroplating process. Here are the different processes;

• Rack plating: This is an electroplating process that is performed by the use of a rack to hold the parts of an object that need to be plated. In rack plating the object is mounted on the rack and is then immersed in the plating solution. This is also known as batch plating.
• Barrel plating: Barrel plating is considered an economical option of electroplating and is used when customers have specific electroplating needs. Barrel plating accommodates objects of different shapes and sizes for electroplating. Horizontal barrels and oblique barrels are used for barrel plating.
• Mass plating: mass plating is applied when there is a bulk of small objects needed to be plated. This type of electroplating cannot be used for delicate objects. Mass plating can take place using barrel plating methods.
• In-Line plating: this type of electroplating is used when plating and finishing process need to be integrated into the primary production line. This method’s benefits include reduction in quality of plating material, exclusion of pre-plating treatment steps, lower energy consumption, and less waste.
• Continuous plating: This is a type of electroplating where a work piece needs to move continuously between one or more rows of anodes for the completion of the plating process.

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