Italian chemist, Luigi Brugnatelli invented electroplating in 1805. Brugnatelli performed electrodeposition of gold using the Voltaic Pile, discovered by his college Allessandro Volta in 1800. Luigi Brugnatelli's work was rebuffed by the dictator Napoleon Bonaparte, which caused Brugnatelli to suppress any further publication of his work.
However, Luigi Brugnatelli did write about electroplating in the Belgian Journal of Physics and Chemistry, "I have lately gilt in a complete manner two large silver medals, by bringing them into communication by means of a steel wire, with a negative pole of a voltaic pile, and keeping them one after the other immersed in ammoniuret of gold newly made and well saturated".
http://inventors.about.com/od/estartinventions/a/Electroplating.htmhttp://www.artisanplating.com/articles/platinghistory.html
He is actually the father of electrodeposition, full stop. Electrodeposition includes electroplating and Electroforming. In Electroplating, the goal is a thin addition of a new metal phase to "finish" an existing piece of metal by giving it different surface characteristics. Whereas Electroforming is the creation of a new piece of metal which merely uses an existing object (mandrel) as a mould on which to deposit metal (underwater) but without causing the metal to plate to the workpiece. Instead, the electroform can be mechanically separated from the mandrel. Plating is "finishing," and Forming is "starting..." *L* - Luigi Galvani only used a primary cell to "galvanize" frogs' legs. Whereas plating and forming both require a secondary cell (since the current must go into the aqueous solution, rather than come out). - Lou Ouija
ReplyDelete