Localized electrochemical deposition – preliminary research

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Electrochemical deposition has been used in industry for many years. It is most often used in plating and electroforming processes. Relatively unexplored area is localized electrochemical deposition. This is due to the difficulty of keeping under control this process. Because the shape and range of the electric field play a key role in electrochemical processes, a high localization is difficult to achieve (both loss and additive processes). The localized electrochemical deposition gives possibility of producing parts using techniques used in additive methods, which allows for better flexibility in the production process. On the other hand, it limits the possibility of using materials for metals only. This process can be used on both micro and macro scale. The most important problems of this technique are localization of process, material structure, filling of part and aggressive environment of electrolyte. The article presents preliminary research of the localized electrochemical deposition process, which was carried out at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Cracow University of Technology. In this process a four electrode system was used powered by bipotentiostat which allowed for full control on electrode potentials. In order to obtain a better localization of the process pulsed power supply was applied.