Ni-P Electroless Plating of Polyethylene Terephthalate Fibers with Various Twist Number Utilizing Supercritical CO2-Assisted Catalyzation

Abstract

Weavable devices are multifunctional fabric-based devices prepared by weaving various functional fibers into a single piece of fabric. Metalized polymer fibers are promising electrical conductors for such weavable devices because of the decnet electrical conductivity derived from the metal coating and flexibility arising from the polymer fiber. However, ensuring both sufficient electrical conductivity and stability in these metalized polymer fibers for practical device application remains challenging because of the insufficent adhesion between the metal coating and polymer fiber. An electroless plating with the catalyzation step performed in supercritical carbon dioxide (sc-CO2)1 is developed to produce metallized polymers possessing high electrical conductivity and good adhesive properties between the metal coating and polymer fiber. In application, fibers are often twisted to enhance a specific property, such as the mechanical property, and the twist number (twist per meter, T/m) is expected to affect the electroless plating performance.In this presentation, Ni-P electroless plating of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fibers with a different twist number (twist per meter, T/m) is reported. The sc-CO2-assisted catalyzation was utilized to achieve electroless plating of Ni-P coatings on the PET fibers. The electrical resistance of the Ni-P/PET fibers was decreased following an increase in the twist number as listed in Table 1. Elemental analyses revealed that the Ni content in the Ni-P coating was higher for the PET fibers with a larger twist number. This tendency corresponded well the the electrical resistance results since Ni-P with a higher Ni content is expected to have a lower electrical resistance. Results obtained in this study indicate that PET fibers with a larger twist number is beneficial for the electroless Ni-P plating by decreasing of the electrical resistance in the fabricated Ni-P/PET fibers. Reference T.-F.M. Chang et al., Microelectron. Eng. 2020, 223, 111233. Figure 1