Rene,
I have used aluminum in a tray of boiling water with baking soda
and it did work, even though I doubted it. However, the pieces I
cleaned were not previously colored by a chemical, just normal
tarnish.
The aluminum I used was part of a silver cleaning kit my aunt
gave me -one of those things she saw in a magazine and thought I
could use. 
It was nothing special-just a 22 gauge plate of
metal and instructions on adding baking soda and boiling water.
As I said, I just tried it to see what results I would achieve,
I didn’t investigate further.
Tim Glotzbach