Towards an electroless deposition of gold on metallic substrates using ionic li...

• Author(s): Sá, A. I. Correia de ; Quaresma, S. ; Eugénio, S. ; Rangel, C. M. ; Vilar, Rui
• Date: 2010
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.9/1128
• Origin: Repositório do LNEG
• Subject(s): Electroless; Gold; Ionic Liquids; Electrodeposition; Thin films
• Document Type: Conference Object
• Language: English

Description

Recent research has suggested a number of applications for gold in fuel cells and related hydrogen fuel processing, which include light weight corrosion resistance bipolar plates and the incorporation of gold as catalyst to provide improvements in electrode conductivity, among others. This paper reports on the electroless deposition of gold on copper substrates from a HAuCl4.3H2O solution in 1-butyl-1- methylpyrrolidinium dicyanamide (BMP-DCA), in laboratory atmospheric conditions. The electrochemical behaviour of the plating solution was studied by potential sweep techniques. Results suggest that gold ions are reduced and deposited on copper without the aid of external polarization, probably by displacement deposition involving copper dissolution, since no other oxidation reaction was identified. Preliminary studies using SEM/EDX showed that compact gold thin films, deposited on copper substrates at 333 K, present a granular nanostructured morphology.