Making Nickel Plated DIY Decorations!

[Music] hello everyone is this wheeler I'm going to tell you about my long journey of learning all Govan applies Tariq's namely copper plating and nickel plating besides I'm going to tell you about how to prevent almost any object from aging and make it practically eternal protecting is with a layer of metal and making a beautiful decoration from it my first encounter with galvanic last year was more than a year ago when I decided to coat a few metal objects in copper and also to make them shiny with the help of special electrolyte additives among all the easy to get additives which are also known as brighteners I had only black trickle of molasses this is a black product resulting from refining sugar it contains minerals and vitamins and also colouring agents which white sugar is purified from before it goes on scale I mixed 200 milliliters of water 40 grams of copper sulfate and 5 milliliters of concentrated sulfuric acid for preparing acid copper plating solution such an electrolyte is common for simple copper plating however usually such coating isn't smooth and shiny to improve brightness and smoothness of the items I added two more grams of black treacle which is supposed to make the copper layer smoother and brighter I run a test in which I used a copper plate as an anode and try to coat an old razor with copper I said current to amperes per square decimeter is a rather turn out to be made of steel which is why the copper lay immediately came off in acidic electrolyte yes the first attempt failed but I used a stainless steel hand watch case back to the second test half an hour later it was covered in a durable layer of copper which wasn't shiny but was even and did come of the same happened other metal objects coins a key and other metal objects were colored in a beautiful layer of copper because all of them were either made of brass or nickel this layer could have easily been polished with an abrasive just like I polished this coin our copper coating isn't particularly durable and when exposed to air such copper plated objects quickly fade especially when they are frequently used that is why I decided to add an additional layer of nickel to this polished coin the nickel electrolyte I made was similar to the copper electrolyte the only difference was that I used nickel sulfate instead of copper sulfate but in about five minutes the nickel nurse started coming off the coin and it wasn't said shiny that I when decided that this experiment was taking too much time and decided to postpone it until the moment I have more time for that so now a year later I think it is time to continue the experiment I have learned so much about electrolytes over the past year and purchased various brighteners and now I am ready to make electroplating masterpieces I decided to coat reliefs rather than some boring metal objects I also decided to do that because it is quite challenging to perform copper or nickel shiny plating of iron aluminum or zinc objects in acidic electrolyte the cause of these metals electric potentials so let us start with leaves after collecting leaves I dried them for a couple of days in order to see which ones of them did not shrink out of shape went right two days later we can clearly see that oak and aspen leaves keeps their shape the best maple leaves also showed good result as well as a to 8 week so I decided to use them for my experiments the first step in creation of such DIY decorations is coating them with a layer of current conduct ten chemical graphite fits here perfectly well you can buy special graphite spray in shops which covers objects with an even layer and is very handy to use we need to coat leaves of three layers of graphite and each layer has to be dried separately in order for the current conducting layer to be as smooth as possible to cover the entire surface area of the leaf besides leaves I also used a pen plastic cap each shape is quite interesting looking and is perfectly fit for copper plating and zette nickel plating when the leaves right I decided to use an oak leaf for the first test and coat it with copper in a regular electrolytes consisting only of copper sulphate and sulfuric acid however as you can see yourselves from these time-lapse spreading of copper sediment is not done evenly and the surface doesn't look smooth it took about 12 hours to cause this leaf in copper with 400 milli ampere current besides not all the surface area was covered copper when we look at the footage showed is a macro mode you can see crystals of copper the cell size is quite large which is why the entire surface looks like sandpaper that is why it doesn't look very attracting because of the lack of additives in the solution christos of copper are too big this electrolyte needs to be improved besides my container for copper plating doesn't seem to be fit in the 4 C's so I decided to put an end to that to improve the process I decided to assemble such a table with two large copper plates working a skater's in other note to experience deficit of copper when I ran in my first experiment I decided to reinvent the wheel instead of following the instructions as a result I decided to combine my previous experience and knowledge I have obtained from the internet I use 200 grams of copper sulfate 20 milliliters of concentrated sulfuric acid ignorance of my favorite black treacle and 30 milliliters of alcohol as a surfactant in other for the layer to be even for 1 liter of solution during the first experiment the power of current was set a free amperes per square decimeter which means that I calculated an approximate surface area of each leaf in square decimeters and multiplied it by free I said current to 600 million anchors for the first aspen leaf by the way at the beginning stages of copper plating it is better to use weak current and then gradually increase it this time it took about 10 hours for the leaf to be fully colored in copper also the layer turn out to be a bit too thick after doing copper plating I noticed that the copper layer wasn't as smooth as I expected that is why the neck think as it needs to be done after regular copper plating is electropolishing for which i need to prepare another solution in a beaker i made a base from a regular acidic copper electrolyte and sulfuric acid for it after that I added 100 of a gram of Theora and 1/10 of a gram of the sulfur naphthenic acid after that I dipped a copper plated aspen leaf in such a solution and applied current measuring about 4 amperes per square decimeter such a process allows to produce a glacier layer of copper without using abrasive add into your ruler and the sufen of tonic acid helps reduce the size of copper crystals so much that their surface because shiny like glass all of this is just a theory in practice without stirring the solution my leaf was taken too long to cover in shiny layer of copper that is why I decided to steer it and increase current because of Theora is a solution zerrin formed sediment was probably consisting of one violent copper compound which is why current had to be increased by more than three times to ensure an even spread however this process was too demanding and in about three hours of toil in a way I got this ugly thing it is shiny only on the bottom we can compare it to the previous leaf samples covered with copper in a regular solution as we can see that bright errs help just a little bit while I was trying to make this leaf shiny I noticed that yet another oak leaf is a big tap card in copper but this time I'd like to produce a shiny layer of copper in yet another way I looked it up in one Soviet patient from the 70s I added 14 grams of copper sulfate and six time 20 milliliters of sulfuric acid 100 of a gram of Theora and drop of unitl in 2 milliliters of water the substance is sold in Russian pharmacies as detox medicine is a full of you freedom aircraft or 1-propanol so folic acid solution which is an organic sulfur containing compound it is much easier to get its and this often after an acid so let us try to make this copper leaf shine again then your solution exceeded all my expectations the oak leaf wasn't just more pale it really called in a glass a layer of copper let's consider the mechanism of this reaction just like the sulfur naphthalene acid to freedom air cap to 1-propanol sulfuric acid which is contained in unit all has links between carbon and oxidized sulfur which increases cathodic polarization and also improves effectiveness of copper spreading and also forming crystals do not grow too big in size these additives are something like reaction inhibitors or retardness of copper crystals grow on the surface of Leafs in this case Theora is a surfactant which also improves spreading of copper this process lasts about two hours now when the process of Cobra lady is over I would like to show you a beautiful result when exposed to the ear however this leaf quickly started oxidizing because of a large surface area and also because copper crystals in this layer are too small that is why the shiny copper layer immediately needs to be caught in a protective layer of nickel in order for the copper not of faith and oxidized besides the copper layer is quite fragile which is why this copper leaf can easily break to remove the copper oxide layer from the leaf and prepare it for nickel plating I put it in a 20 percent sulfuric acid solution while oxides were being removed from the copper plated leaf I decided to prepare electrolyte for shiny nickel plating from what I had available to me I am pouring 50 grams of nickel sulphate 5 grams of boric acid and 2 grams of sodium chloride which is a regular table salt after that and pour in about 250 milliliters of water and also brighteners 100 of a gram of tio array and 1/10 of a gram of the sofa naphthalene acid I used a nickel strip as an anode which I was sent by a Chinese manufacturer I slice is a nickel strip into a few smaller strips and attach them to the beaker as a nose after said the copper leaf is ready to be plated with nickel I said current to 800 milli amperes it was a rather a random choice to my surprise nickel stuck to the copper in an even layer and didn't come off the whole process took about 20 minutes we can check the nickel layer by the items color if its color is yellowish it means that there is not enough nickel and plating has to be continued nowadays disease of nickel plated with copper is used very widely for instance this method is employed to plate some displays neodymium magnets tape squirrels and lots of other items when the item is nickel plated it looks pretty beautiful and interesting and resembles silver by the way in my opinion there's no need to silver place such a leaf because in time silver oxidizes and fades in the air the only thing I do not like about this leaf he says the copper layer is too thick that is why I decided to change the electrolyte in the big top to well-proven one and not to use black treacle I made a new improved electrolyte from 100 grams of copper sulfate dissolved in 500 milliliters of water then I added 70 milliliters of concentrated sulfuric acid and three milliliters of ethanol as a surfactant to the solution to improve the surface with a little bit of gelatine dissolving it when I carried out further copper plating of aspen leaves the copper layer were much thinner and it took less time for leaves to be plated satisfy the latter electrolyte is better than the one this black treacle i used after copper plating I decided to polish the leaf in another solution with any tool however the solutions began to grow muddy because of containing teo array that is why i had to increase current by 2 times it took me three hours to polish it such a method of electro polishing is much better than mechanical polishing because less copper is needed and nickel will stick better to the copper layer the cause of a larger surface area it is better to store such leaves in 20 percent sulfuric acid after electro polishing in other for them not to oxidize in the air and be better prepared for nickel plating when I nickel plated it later on it become a nearly perfect eternal leaf which can easily be used as a gift for a beloved person why nearly perfect because in the beginning current wasn't strong enough which is why I reformed such bumps on the leaf that is why you need to keep constant watch for the solution during brightening and a soon as the solution star store Biden immediately increase current by two times and observes a result besides aspen leaves i also copper-plated brighten it and nickel-plated at two eight week so if you liked this video please give it a thumbs up and also subscribe to my channel to see many more new and interesting [Music] [Music]

Channel: Thoisoi2 - Chemical Experiments!

Views: 140,214

Keywords: copper plating, nickel plating, shiny copper, electrotyping, galvanics, electrolyte, chemistry video, shiny nickel plating, solution, copper sulfate, nickel sulfate, done, copper powder, DIY, thoisoi, leaves, electrochemistry, chemistry, inorganic chemistry, electricity, Thoisoi

Id: QjfNrZigqL0

Length: 16min 42sec (1002 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 21 2019