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how much silver is needed electroplate for a year and more!

Hi. I wrote a letter (#3215) last time asking about electroplating. I now more aware of my task would like to ask a few more questions. I would like to ask you, on the assumption you run a company, how many cells do you have especially for electroplating silver, in production? and in a year how much electroplating of silver would you do? and how many kilos or tonnes of silver a year. Thank you very much for any answers.

thanks

trang

trang nguyen
- victoria, australia
1999

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I don't run a silver plating company, but most jobshops have but a single silver plating cell whereas a manufacturer of plated silverware could easily have a dozen or more cells. If you want to do research, there have been plant writeups about such factories in the journals several times.

An interesting calculation for your report might be a Faraday's Law determination of how much electricity a plant would have to consume to deposit a ton of silver per year. I came up with 227,000 Amp-hours. So if you figure a plating voltage of 6 volts, that's about 1360 kW-hrs. Now compare that with your electricity bill or your school's electricity bill.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey