Electrodeposition of Silver from Sulfate, Nitrate, Fluoborate and Fluoride Solutions

Abstract

The possibility of electrodepositing silver in a form suitable for electroplating purposes from silver sulfate, nitrate, fluoborate and fluoride solutions has been studied. Owing to the simple‐immersion deposition of silver from these solutions upon copper, mercury, brass and nickel, adherent deposits were obtained only upon silver. Relatively compact deposits of silver were obtained upon silver deposited from an argento‐cyanide solution, from silver sulfate solutions containing boric acid or ferric sulfate, silver nitrate solutions containing boric acid., silver fluoborate solutions and silver fluoride solutions. However, these solutions showed a great tendency to yield treed deposits, and the conditions under which deposits free from trees could be obtained were limited. All the compact deposits were decidedly crystalline, and while they might be of use in the electrorefining of silver, as a means of obtaining dense silver deposits instead of the loose crystals given by the nitrate solution, they offer no serious competition to the usual argento‐cyanide solution for the electroplating of silver, unless considerable improvement can be made, for example, by the use of addition agents. A further difficulty in the way of the use of these baths for silver deposition is the unsatisfactory corrosion of the anodes.