Combined mild and hard novel fabrication approach for nanoporous membrane

Abstract

Anodization of aluminum by a hard anodizing or mild anodizing process is usually done to obtain metal top surface finishing. Recently, this process has been becoming famous for the formation of through-hole porous oxide membranes (TH-POM) which act as a template for fabrication of nanowires/tubes. Membranes with different pore diameters, interpore distance, depth of pore and porosity can be obtained by selecting different parameters such as type and concentration of electrolyte, pH, temperature, time and applied voltage. In this research paper, exclusive experiments were studied and conducted to obtain TH-POM which will be template for generation of ordered nanowires by an electrochemical process. This research is carried out using a combination of mild anodization (MA) and hard anodization (HA) with novel heterogeneous control parameters by using DC power supply, magnetic stirrer and data acquisition system (DAQ) and at high temperature in order to minimize the refrigeration cost required for cooling the electrolyte. Excellent ordered membranes of 24–29 nm and 40–50 nm pore diameter were obtained in short time, characterized by SEM and EDS and analyzed by I–V curves obtained using an Arduino-based current/voltage data logger. A thermal stress test is also performed on the TH-POM formed using MA and HA.