Study of the effect of ethylene glycol and glycerol on the rate of electropolishing of copper by the rotating disk technique

Abstract

The rate of copper dissolution in the presence of phosphoric acid‐alcohol mixtures was studied by measuring the limiting current density which represents that the rate of electropolishing is decreased by increasing phosphoric acid concentration, electrode height, and mole fraction of alcohol. Thermodynamic parameters are calculated. The rotating disk electrode is being used as a tool to study the influence of organic solvent addition on the rate of electropolishing of copper. Different reaction conditions such as temperature, speed of rotation of copper disk, the physical properties of solution are studied to obtain a dimensionless correlation between all these parameters. The data can be correlated by the following equations: Sh = 1.835 (Sc)0.33 (Re)0.36 (for ethylene glycol) Sh = 1.25 (Sc)0.33 (Re)0.5 (for glycerol) It is obvious that the exponent in the two cases denotes a laminar flow mechanism.