Can paper be electroplated without damaging it?

[iwant2beoz]

I am looking for a way to electroplate paper without disintegrating the paper. Is there a conductive "paint" that I can use? And is there some way to preserve the paper?

 

[SteamKing]

Supposing such a process could be developed, how would 'electroplating' paper be useful?

 

[iwant2beoz]

Because it would be cool to be able to do it. I'm thinking of trying an art project, not something that normally interests me but it's a Monday and I'm bored.

 

[Borek]

Perhaps using graphite will do. At least to some extent.

However, I am not convinced whatever you deposit will be able to stick to paper. Even when electroplating metals we often have to do tricks (like electroplating with a thin layer of some other metal first) to be sure the final coating won't peel off.

 

[iwant2beoz]

I think the most difficult part will be finding a way to keep the paper from dissolving away. Most of the time you have to use an acid when electroplating right?

 

[Borek]

I think the most difficult part will be finding a way to keep the paper from dissolving away. Most of the time you have to use an acid when electroplating right?

Not necessarily, there are recipes for baths that are basic or neutral. Doesn't mean you will be able to find one working with graphite.

 

[iwant2beoz]

I guess I will just have to try and see what happens:)

 

[christopher.s]

You are correct that your biggest issue will be the paper dissolving in your bath. It would be better to evaporate your metals onto the paper.

 

[iwant2beoz]

You are correct that your biggest issue will be the paper dissolving in your bath. It would be better to evaporate your metals onto the paper.

how might I do that?

 

[Baluncore]

Vacuum deposition is used to put a reflective metal film coating onto glass mirrors. Put the paper in a vacuum, place a sample of the metal to evaporate on a tungsten filament in the chamber. Heat the filament to boil off the material slowly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_vapor_deposition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_coating

 

[iwant2beoz]

That sounds pretty cool, but it might be a tad bit out of my budget to build such a device.

 

[Lok]

Tried rubbing solder on paper, no use.
Graphite works though.
And you can use cotton paper (money paper), the kind that does not dissolve easily in water and a slightly basic solution.

 

[iwant2beoz]

How did you apply the graphite?

 

[Lok]

How did you apply the graphite?

I applied it with a borrowed Rotring o.5mm pencil. For some reason pencils had gone out of fashion in my office.

 

[iwant2beoz]

I don't know why but I thought it would be far more complicated then that.

 

[mheslep]

I might be helpful in answering your question to find out fundamentally what paper is, what electroplating is, why it is possible to attach a charged substance to another. Paper is cellulose, a large organic molecule with atomic weight in the thousands, (C₆H₁₀O₅)_n. Cellulose is readily attached by adhesives to other materials which are commonly electroplated.

 

[Baluncore]

Cellulose is a natural long chain polymer. Synthetic plastics are also long chain polymers.
If you can electroplate plastics, then how much harder can it be to electroplate paper?

1. This is a great general resource. The electrodeposition of copper onto circuit boards is described here.
http://www2.bren.ucsb.edu/~dturney/port/papers/Modern Electroplating/02.pdf

2. “Electroplating Plastics” http://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=525
Then the question becomes, what chemicals are needed to sensitise cellulose?
That answer will let you plate paper, wood and cotton. You could even make "electric string".

3. This one is behind a paywall, but the abstract gives some information. “Electroless Plating of Iron onto Cellulose Fibers” describes depositing a ferromagnetic FeB coating onto Pd/Sn-catalyzed substrates. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/cm060649o

 

[iwant2beoz]

Well the paper didn't melt but the graphite didn't pick up any metal. Just to make sure that my set up was working I attached a an inch long piece of pencil lead and it is covered in copper. It's quite an irregular plating but it's working. Any idea why the paper didn't plate?

 

[Borek]

First: paper won't melt, it can dissolve (actually it will be more like disintegration, I am not even sure how to name it).

You can't be sure the graphite layer was continuous enough to conduct electricity. Have you tried to control the current? Was there any flowing?

 

[iwant2beoz]

At the moment I don't have any of the normal tools to measure current and the like, but current was flowing. I know that because the LED I hooked up in one of the lead wires lit up. that's not much current but it is something.

 

[Lok]

The resistance was quite high on a pencil line around 60 Ohm's for a 1cm line. And current will likely flow on the path of least resistance. Be sure wires that touch the graphite do not touch the electrolyte.

Make a 10cm long line on a piece of paper. Insist on it several times. Put one drop of CUSo4 in the middle. Connect one end of the line to the appropriate pole and take the other and touch the water of the droplet. It could be a very slow deposition. But if Bubbles come out something is happening.

 

[iwant2beoz]

Ok I will give it a shot, what voltage should I use?

 

[Lok]

The high resistance will mean a high voltage drop and unless you have a voltage higher than the necessary potential Copper will not be reduced. I usually use a variable source and start at 2V and can go as high as 24V in my electroplating/eroding setups. There are too many unknowns to give a definite answer, it is easier to up the voltage if nothing happens.

 

[christopher.s]

I tried this with a leftover nickel sulfamate bath and was unable to get any current to flow. The resisitivity of the graphite on the paper was pretty high, so that is probably what the issue was.

I still think your best bet is to evaporate your metals. It's not as hard as you might think...

 

[iwant2beoz]

Can I make a metal evaporator out of things around the house or will I need to hit up eBay ? I get the principal but not the practice...

 

[christopher.s]

You will need a vacuum chamber and pump, a source to provide enough current to heat a metal to evaporation, and something to hold the evaporating metals. Tungsten wire baskets or boats are commonly used.

 

[iwant2beoz]

Hum well it sounds like some thing I can build but I don't think it's wise to to build it on my kitchen table, so I will have to wait till later to try it.

 

[Borek]

It is definitely not trivial. Not to mention is can be quite dangerous to work with vacuum.

 

[iwant2beoz]

Ok so I have an odd question. I have been trying outs Zink plating instead of copper to see how it behaves and so far it is plating to my graphite rod but it is a dull grey color. Is this normal or am I doing something wrong?

 

[Borek]

When metals start to deposit as a very tiny crystals they can look dull.

No idea if that's the case, but it doesn't have to be wrong.

 

[iwant2beoz]

Ok so I will try to polish it and see what happens.

 

[Borek]

If these are tiny crystals on graphite they will most likely just fell off.

 

[iwant2beoz]

What is the best metal to use as a substrate?

 

[Matcon]

Perhaps in the realms of speculation, but surely a flash of electroless nickel would get you started? Nonconductors need a pretreatment with tin or palladium. Then electroplate over that.