Investigation of Metal Ion Diffusion and Reduction Potential in Several Ionic Liquids

Abstract

Electrodeposition is proving to be a promising technique for forming metal capsules and other components required for Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) experiments performed at the National Ignition Facility. While we have recently demonstrated that non-porous, defect free parts can be electrodeposited from a variety of water-based solutions,1,2 many of the preferred metals for the ICF program (beryllium, uranium, etc.) cannot be deposited because electrolysis of water occurs at the potential required to reduce such metals. To circumvent this, we are currently investigating Ionic Liquids (ILs) as solvents for metal electrodeposition, as the wide (~ 6 V) electrochemical window of ILs is expected to allow electrodeposition of Be, U, and many other metals.3 We are investigating the key parameters of metal ion diffusion and reduction potential for two model metals, silver and copper, in several different ionic liquids. We use electrochemical measurements along with first principles density functional theory (DFT) simulations to understand how ionic liquids affect diffusion and reduction potential, and this understanding will be applied to selecting appropriate ILs for deposition of metals such as Be and U. Funding was provided by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Grant 17-ERD-047. This work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. IM release LLNL-ABS-771850. (1) Horwood, C.; Stadermann, M.; Bunn, T. L. Fusion Sci. Technol. 2018, 73 (3). (2) Bunn, T.; Horwood, C.; Stadermann, M. Cathode System for Electrodeposition of Metals on Microspheres. US Patent 16336-000075-US-PS1, 2018. (3) Electrodeposition from ionic liquids, 2nd ed.; Endres, F., Abbott, A., MacFarlane, D., Eds.; Wiley-VCH: Weinheim, Germany, 2017.