Fabrication of Cu2O plated carbon fabrics via electrochemical deposition method

Abstract

Functional fabrics have many advanced applications to meet the expectations of the end-user industry. There is a variety of approaches to impart functional properties to the fabrics including coatings, the addition of functional fillers, surface modifications, etc. Metallization techniques are also a good candidate to impart functionalities to textile fabrics. On the other hand, Cu2O is a diamagnetic solid that has a variety of applications from flexible electronics to gas sensing. In this study, one of the simplest plating techniques, the electroplating method, was applied to carbon fabric to provide Cu2O coating on the surface which can add the advantages of metal oxides on carbon fabric. The Cu2O particles were observed on the surface of carbon fabric using SEM and the elemental composition of the surface was investigated using the EDS method. The crystal structure of the coating was identified using the X-ray diffraction technique and Raman spectroscopy. To confirm the achieved structure, FTIR analysis was performed as well. The newly fabricated structure can be a promising candidate for supercapacitors, electromagnetic shielding materials, dielectric surfaces, etc.