The rhodium bath is a process of electrolysis by immersion of jewelry, widely used in fine jewelry for high quality finishes. Not only does it help protect your jewelry, but it whitens the pieces in a very special way, beautifying and giving life to your jewels.

In this article we explain to you what this rhodium bath consists of, and everything you can do for your jewelry.

What is rhodium
Rhodium is a silver-colored metal, of the platinum family. It is, though surprise you, of one of the most expensive metals in the world because of its scarcity.

However, it is not its price which makes it inadvisable as a base metal to create a jewel. It is not a neutral metal as the gold or the silver, and it might be a toxicant.

Unless it is used very, very subtly. And here it is where comes in the rhodium bath.

What is a Rhodium Bath?
A rhodium bath is a dip electrolysis technique for high quality jewelry finishes. It consists of submerging a jewel of gold or silver in a chemical solution containing tiny amounts of the precious metal. These dilute solutions contain several grams of rhodium, and by an electrolytic process, a layer of several microns rhodium adheres to the surface of the part that has been submerged.

Completed the process, what remains is the jewel, covered by the thin layer of rhodium already fixed, completely harmless to people.

What is the use of the rhodium bath
The rhodium bath has two main functions.

The first is protect. For example, the silver oxidizes with air and gets ugly right away and gets many scratches if you wear the jewel usually. Gold can also scratch and fade.

The rhodium bath serves as a protective film. Its protection is not eternal; because it is a very thin film of several microns, but its target is special (it is advisable to take the piece to give new rhodium baths within a few years, depending on the use that we give to the jewel). But it will lengthen the brightness and life of your pieces for much longer.

The second function of rhodium bath is Embellish.

For starters, there are white, black and pink rhodium solutions.

And finally, depending on the amount of rhodium that the solution carries and the submerged time of the part in the electrolytic bath, that layer may be higher or lower, and therefore more or less durable, also depending on the use and care that we give to our jewels.

The result is that any jewel of silver, white or pink gold, can see its colors and glitter highlights, nuanced or transformed by the rhodium bath.

And this gives rise to hundreds of design possibilities for rings, pendants and earrings.

So you can have different jewelry, contemporary, pieces never seen and with which to surprise everyone.