Electroforming is defined by ASTM committee B8 as follows: “The production or reproduction of parts by precipitation of a galvanic layer on a mould, with the parts then being separated from one another.”
Electroforming was invented when electricity was discovered at the start of the 19th century. Its invention is credited to professor B.S. Jacobi of the Science Academy of St. Petersburg, Russia in 1937/1938 with copper electrical sheets on an engraved copper plate that he used as a cathode in a copper sulphate solution.
Through the ability to make reliably accurate replicas on a mould surface - atom by atom - over the past few years electroforming has become increasingly important in the production of metal parts on a micro and nano scale and for injection moulds with micro and nano properties for the production of micro-structured plastic surfaces.