Preparation of a Nickel Layer with Bell-Mouthed Macropores via the Dual-Template Method

Ruishan Yang,Yanli Dou,Guangguang Qian,Wenjiao Yao

doi:10.3390/met11121894

Abstract

A relatively static and unique bubble template is successfully realized on a microporous substrate by controlling the surface tensions of the electrodeposit solution, and a nickel layer containing macropores is prepared using this bubble template. When the surface tension of the solution is 50.2 mN/m, the desired bubble template can be formed, there are fewer bubbles attached to other areas on the substrate, and a good nickel layer is obtained. In the analysis of the macropore formation process, it is found that the size of the bell-mouthed macropores can be tailored by changing the solution stirring speed or the current density to adjust the growth rate of the bubble template. The size change of a macropore is measured by the profile angle of the longitudinal macropore, section. As the solution stirring speed increases from 160 to 480 r/min, the angle range of the bell-mouthed macropores cross-sectional profile is increased from 21.0° to 44.3°. In addition, the angle range of the bell-mouthed macropore cross-sectional profile is increased from 39.3° to 46.3° with the current density increasing from 1 to 2.5 A/dm2. Different from the dynamic hydrogen bubble template, the bubble template implemented in this paper stays attached on the deposition and grows slowly, which is novel and interesting, and the nickel layer containing macropores prepared using this bubble template is applied in completely different fields.

Highlights

The dynamic hydrogen bubble template (DHBT) method has been widely studied in recent years, and the materials with high specific surface areas prepared by this method have important applications for catalysis, sensing, and energy [1,2,3,4]
Analysis of the Formation of Bell-Mouthed Macropores in Deposition to the micropores in the micropore section is larger than the adhesion interface of the SDSattached is a common surfactant, which can effectively the to surface tension of are the bubbles to the smooth surface, so the bubblesreduce attached the micropores solution, leading to reduced adhesion energy to promote the desorption of bubbles from difficult to desorb
In this work, a nickel layer with bell-mouthed macropores was prepared by using a substrate with micropores and hydrogen bubbles as templates

Summary

Introduction

The dynamic hydrogen bubble template (DHBT) method has been widely studied in recent years, and the materials with high specific surface areas prepared by this method have important applications for catalysis, sensing, and energy [1,2,3,4]. It is worth noting that the bubbles will coalesce during the evolution process, resulting in the pore size of the deposition increasing with increasing distance from the substrate [19,22,23]. For this phenomenon, the bubble template behavior proposed by Liu [22] is typical, in which the bubbles become increasingly larger during the bubble evolution. Most studies have focused just on the preparation of the microporous metal deposits in a short electric plating time using the DHBT method. The potential applications of this method to make macropores with smooth walls in the metal deposits over a long electric plating time are yet to be explored

Methods

Results

Conclusion