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Palladium plating - a home-brew solution?

October 5, 2010

I have a bag of Palladium Chloride here that's more commonly used by me for organic chemistry. But I thought I might try palladium plating some brass! :D

Does anyone have some experience with palladium plating, the solutions, voltages, densities and so on? Particularly, with the forms of palladium I should be using. I know the chloride is used for plating, sometimes, but wonder if I'm going to end up wasting the bag when I could have switched the salt to something that'll work better. Also wondering about additions, like cobalt and nickel. Strike coating of something to help the brass?

I have a 0.1mg balance, 70 amp voltage / current linear regulated supply, a ton of glassware, a chemical supplier account and a fair bit of experience, albeit not with plating.

I'm reading a patent about doing it in the nuclear industry, onto refractories of titanium and such. They're mentioning densities up to 0.5 amps per cm^2 and a neutral to basic pH.

I see palladium can also be electroless deposited. Hmmmmmm

All the best and thanks for helping!
John

John Heritage
Hobbyist - Merseyside, United Kingdom

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Simple D-I-Y palladium bath
Mix 2 solutions- solution/160 gms NaOH+200 ccm water and solution/II dissolve 0,5 gms palladium in form of chloride, then add 700 ccm water, 2-2,6 v / o,15-0, 25 A/dm2, 20-25 C temp., palladium anode
According to:
W.Machu Metallische Ueberzuege, Leipzig 1948

Hope it helps and good luck!

Goran Budija
- Cerovski vrh Croatia
October 7, 2010