Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Copper hydroxide electroplating

Fantasma4500 - 7-10-2021 at 07:32

i just noticed by scrubbing some sandpapered titanium with copper hydroxide, then using the titanium as cathode that it turned the copper hydroxide into copper oxide and copper metal
i thought it was gonna come off by touch, but it didnt, it adheres very well and it forms in a second or less at just 12V1A

this may be possible with other hydroxides, my idea is that the hydroxide is directly reduced to metal, maybe submerging a cathode into a suspension of a metal hydroxide could do

i came across this when i was fooling around with a failed electrolytic dissolution setup for copper and a toothbrush- the way science was meant to be.

zerodan - 11-12-2021 at 02:54

Quote: Originally posted by Antiswat  
i just noticed by scrubbing some sandpapered titanium with copper hydroxide, then using the titanium as cathode that it turned the copper hydroxide into copper oxide and copper metal
i thought it was gonna come off by touch, but it didnt, it adheres very well and it forms in a second or less at just 12V1A

this may be possible with other hydroxides, my idea is that the hydroxide is directly reduced to metal, maybe submerging a cathode into a suspension of a metal hydroxide could do

i came across this when i was fooling around with a failed electrolytic dissolution setup for copper and a toothbrush- the way science was meant to be.


What did you use as the anode?
I don't think you need to cover the cathode with Cu(OH)2
I had a similar thing happen when trying to remove copper from carbon electrodes in brine bath.
There was a lot of Cu(OH)2 but my Ti cathode turned brown in certain places,
it looked like a good coating, no flaking at all.

wg48temp9 - 11-12-2021 at 11:23

Quote: Originally posted by zerodan  
[
What did you use as the anode?
I don't think you need to cover the cathode with Cu(OH)2
I had a similar thing happen when trying to remove copper from carbon electrodes in brine bath.
There was a lot of Cu(OH)2 but my Ti cathode turned brown in certain places,
it looked like a good coating, no flaking at all.


I found the simplest and cleanest method of removing the copper coating on carbon gouging rods is to peal it off in one helical strip about 6mm wide. You adjust the direction of the pull either up or down in the direction of the rod length to control the width of the strip.

Fantasma4500 - 18-12-2021 at 02:40

i believe i was attempting to create a solution of copper salt with copper anode and stainless cathode
turns out i would need to add in a bunch of acid, but i ended up using the copper that electrodeposited with some H2O2 to react with acid, went quite fast and hot, nurdrage has a cool video on making copper sulfate where he did some sneaky tricks to contain the copper

i got some vague success making CuO using NaOH but it seemed to just oddly stop producing CuO, very minor yield vs runtime, would be cool to just straight up produce CuO from copper metal electrolytically, CuO is very reactive, reacts within seconds with HCl for instance

mysteriusbhoice - 18-12-2021 at 18:26

if you want to make copper salts with electrochem and no acids then you need to use ion exchange membranes. or simply a porous barrier which can be made with PVC glue lathered onto some cleaning cloth and dried then perforated with a mix of 4 molar NaOH and quaternary ammonium salts from floor cleaners.
Or you can actually make ion exchange resin from my instructional vid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiMt4tIced8

zerodan - 19-12-2021 at 06:24

Quote: Originally posted by Antiswat  
i believe i was attempting to create a solution of copper salt with copper anode and stainless cathode
turns out i would need to add in a bunch of acid, but i ended up using the copper that electrodeposited with some H2O2 to react with acid, went quite fast and hot, nurdrage has a cool video on making copper sulfate where he did some sneaky tricks to contain the copper

i got some vague success making CuO using NaOH but it seemed to just oddly stop producing CuO, very minor yield vs runtime, would be cool to just straight up produce CuO from copper metal electrolytically, CuO is very reactive, reacts within seconds with HCl for instance


What do you consider minor? I wouldn't expect kilos of this stuff but it's a more than suitable process.
I had a very fruitful run with copper anode aluminium cathode in NaCl.
The solution got filled with light blue/greenish paste in minutes.
Then just filter the solution and blast the precipitate with a torch, bam CuO.