Precious Metals

Silver is plated predominately from cyanide based electrolytes. The silver can be plated with little or no organic additives which produces a very dull to chalk-white deposit. This dull deposit can be easily burnished to appear bright on the exposed surfaces.  If a true bright silver deposit is required, then organic additives can be used to refine the grain of the deposit producing a full bright appearance.

This specification covers requirements for electrodeposited coatings of silver used for engineering purposes that may be mat, bright, or semibright and are not less than 98% silver purity.

Coatings of silver covered by this specification are usually employed for solderable surfaces, electrical contact characteristics, high electrical and thermal conductivity, thermocompression bonding, wear resistance of load-bearing surfaces, and special reflectivity.

Gold plating is used for decorative applications as well as electronic. The majority of gold plated parts are for the electronic components, semiconductors, and printed circuit applications. Gold, with high electrical conductivity, low contact resistance and good solderability, is a good choice for most electronic components. Depending on the end users requirements, the component to be gold plated will often have a barrier coat of copper, nickel, or copper and nickel prior to the gold deposit. Again depending upon the customer requirements the gold deposit can be a little as .000002" to .0001" thick. An average thickness for most electronic components would be .000030".

Basic Information:

• Name: Gold
• Symbol: Au
• Atomic Number: 79 
• 196.96655 (2)
• 1064.43 °C (1947.97 °F)
• Protons/Electrons: 79
• Neutrons: 118
• Transition Metal
• Structure: Cubic
• K: 19.32 g/cm³

Gold Standard

Gold Plated Connectors