text: The common technique of cleaning silverware by immersion of the silver or sterling silver (or even just silver plated objects) and a piece of aluminium (foil is preferred because of its much greater surface area than that of ingots, although if the foil has a "non-stick" face, this must be removed with steel wool first) in a hot electrolytic bath (usually composed of water and sodium bicarbonate, i.e., household baking soda) is an example of galvanic corrosion. Silver darkens and corrodes in the presence of airborne sulfur molecules, and the copper in sterling silver corrodes under a variety of conditions.  These layers of corrosion can be largely removed through the electrochemical reduction of silver sulfide molecules: the presence of aluminium (which is less noble than either silver or copper) in the bath of sodium bicarbonate strips the sulfur atoms off the silver sulfide and transfers them onto and thereby corrodes the piece of aluminium foil (a much more reactive metal), leaving elemental silver behind. No silver is lost in the process.