저널

Silver deposits formed on copper substrates by replacement reactions show poor adhesion, and a silver film plated on such a deposit does not adhere. Silver ion makes a highly stable complex with cyanide ion, so that in a silver cyanide solution, the activity of silver ion is very small. This is one of the reasons for the universal use of cyanide baths in the industrial silver plating. However, the consideration of the difference between the values of the stability constants for bath the silver-iodide complex and the copper-iodide complex suggest that the rate of replacement deposition of silver on the copper substrate in si]ver-potassium iodide solution, could be comparatively low. To confirm this, the rate of replacement deposition of silver in both a silver-potassium iodide solution ($AgNO_3$0.10 mol/L, KI 2.00 mol/L ) and a strike silver plating bath (AgCN 0.028 mol/L, KCN 1.15 mol/L ) was estimated from the current density corresponding to the point of intersection of the anodic and the cathodic polarization curves. These estimated values were almost the same, and it is suggested that the silver-potassium iodide solution is not only a cyanide free silver plating bath capable of employing a copper substrate but a silver plating bath which requires no strike plating.