What Is The Purpose Of Electroplating?
The Purposes of Electroplating: Appearance : One the important purpose of electroplating is that, it enhances appearance of the objects. Electroplating gives smooth and attractive finish to the crude metal objects. One of the examples from our day to day lives is chromium plating on automobiles and kitchen appliances which gives them an up market appeal. Also, we see that thin plating of precious metals such as gold or silver on less valuable metal make wide use in expensive jewellery making. Protection : The basic purpose of electroplating is to protect the metal from environmental and atmospheric conditions such as corrosion for example iron is likely to get eroded easily, in order to protect it from rusting, coatings of metal such as magnesium, zinc and aluminium are applied. Special surface properties : The other purpose served by it incorporating some special surface properties. For example, chromium and nickel plating is used when hardness is required. Engineering or mechanical properties : It also serves in providing many mechanical properties to the metals which it lacks such as magnetic properties, resistance, light absorption etc. For example, copper or brass connectors are silver plated in order to increase the electrical conductivity