1. Context

1.1 Classification

Gold and silver belong to the family of noble metals, distinguished from base metals by their particular property of resisting corrosion. They form a subgroup of the transition metals in Mendeleyev's periodic table of elements. They belong to the fifth and sixth periods of Groups IB and VIII of the periodic table. Gold (Au) and silver (Ag) both belong to group IB and have similar chemical properties.

In this article, we will only deal with the electrolytic coating of gold and silver, i.e. the production of a coating by cathodic reduction of metal ions contained in an aqueous solution of carefully chosen composition, using a current generator as the electron source.