# removing rhodium plating



## scraps (Jan 17, 2012)

hi, is it possible to remove rhodium / palladium plating from fine jewellery using reverse electrolysis?

i have read about gold and silver plating being removed this way but what about other metals?

what would i need to use, just a jar/distilled water and a battery? thanks


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## nickvc (Jan 18, 2012)

In all honesty the amount of Rh or Pd on a few items wouldn't be worth the effort. If your refining karat scrap and silver to inquart with the silver acts as a collector of the PGMs and will follow the silver out of the nitric solution when cemented out with copper. To recover the PGMs simply use a silver cell and an anode bag, the slimes will contain any values which can be recovered and refined.


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## scraps (Jan 18, 2012)

i dont like the idea of having to inquart silver. is there any way to do it without the silver? its all fine jewellery.
i wouldnt just be doing it for a few items, it would be a few items a week. for example, i had a nice heavy 18k chain,
it had one of the thickest platings i have seen.. at a guess it would of been 0.3 - 0.4gm of mostly rhodium. so
i was thinking if i could have a jar that i could use and re-use for a few months until i have built up enough to refine. 

cheers for the reply, i'll have to go do some google searching i dont even know what an anode bag is. thanks again, scraps.


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## nickvc (Jan 18, 2012)

Most Rh plating solutions are run fairly weak in the the jewellery business, I know because we have a rhodium plate set up, if I remember correctly around 2-4 grams per litre,GSP or Lou will correct me if I'm wrong here and the cost of solutions is pretty high around $160 a gram so the platers won't waste it. The solutions will plate so maybe if you can find an old solution reverse plating may work again GSP or Lou are the experts here.
Heavy plating is unusual I wonder whether it was plated with nickel first and then rhodium plated to passivate the nickel and any problems that it can cause?


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