Copper electroplating of 3D printed composite electrodes

Abstract

The manufacture of electrodes by 3D printing approaches has recently been recognized as a fast, inexpensive and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional preparation techniques based on subtractive manufacturing tools. However, as-prepared 3D printed electrodes typically show a considerable intrinsic kinetic barrier for the electron transfer. In this work we employ fused deposition modelling 3D printing to fabricate electrodes from a polylactic acid/copper composite filament and subject them to the surface functionalization by the copper electroplating aiming at eliminating this kinetic barrier. Cyclic voltammetry employing [Ru(NH3)6]3+/2+ couple as the electroactive probe was employed to inspect electron transfer properties of the manufactured electrodes. We demonstrate that electrodes modified by an optimized electroplating procedure show virtually no kinetic barrier and generate faradaic response with the magnitude comparable to that obtained at conventional metallic and carbon-based electrodes. The obtained faradaic peak separation value (70–75 mV) is superior to all values reported for 3D printed electrodes in the literature.