Manufacture of Nickel-Ceramic Composite Membranes in Agitated Electroless Plating Baths

Abstract

Nickel hydrazine electroless plating baths with membrane stirring as a mass transfer enhancement is considered to evaluate the membrane morphological dependence on metal solution concentration, loading ratio (membrane area per unit volume of plating solution), and stirrer speed. Inexpensive sintered ceramic supports with an average pore size of 275 nm were used for all experimental investigations. Other parametric investigations include conversion and plating efficiency. It was observed that the loading ratio significantly influenced metal film thickness but not the nominal pore size of the membranes. On the other hand, effect of stirrer speed is significant for solutions with 0.04 mol/L metal solution concentrations, moderate for solutions with 0.08 mol/L solution concentration, and insignificant for 0.16 mol/L concentration. Based on several experimental investigations, it is inferred that the optimal choice of the agitated plating process are 0.08 mol/L initial nickel solution concentration, 393 cm²/L of loading ratio, and 100 rpm stirrer speed.

Keywords:

• Conversion
• Densification
• Efficiency
• Electroless
• Hydrazine
• Membrane
• Plating
• Stirring

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work is partially supported by a grant from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of CSIR, New Delhi.