El plateado: una actividad electroquímica para integrar diversas ciencias con el arte

Abstract

Electrochemical silver is an interesting activity of teaching for the integration of electrochemistry, chemistry, physics and art. Craftsman needs to produce a bright layer of silver on his works and so chooses to use electrolyte of diverse nature. The cost and the degree of toxicity are two important variables that have an impact on the determination of the choice of the electrolyte to be used. Silver usually is find in the complex state and the study of the different complexes represents an interesting activity in the chemistry of coordination compounds. It is important to establish a relation between the brightness of the coating and the stability of the complex compound of silver and therefore of its structure. This paper correlates characteristics of electrolyte with the silver brightness electrochemically deposited on copper and nickel. In order to quantify the silver brightness, the reflectivity measurements were made with the luxmeter.