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Gold plating

You must have certainly heard of gold looking jewelry, watches and other fashion accessories. These are not actually made of gold metal but they are basically gold plated. The pure metal of gold is very costly in market and people can’t buy gold jewelry often. Whereas gold plated jewelry is less in price as compared to pure gold jewelry.

Gold plating is a technique in which a thin layer of gold is deposited on another metal like copper or silver. The process of gold plating is done by way of chemical or electrochemical methods. Another method in which mechanical or chemical techniques of affixing of gold on another metal's surface is done, is known as gilding.

Its not that gold plating is used in the jewelry sector only but it is done in high scale in electronics industry also.

Pure gold plating is done in the semiconductor industry, which is known as soldering. It is done with the help of special electrolytes. The electronic circuit boards are also gold plated. Apart from it, gold plating is also used in wire bonding. Gold plating is done on the electronic equipment and gadgets to make them corrosion-resistant.

For jewelry purposes, Gold plating is done on silver metal. Because of the property of Silver, its atoms get diffused into the gold layer easily, hence, takes the color of the gold. But this color is not permanent but takes several months to slowly fade away depending upon the deposits of the gold layer. Gold plated silver comprises copper and nickel in minute quantities.