A flow-rate-controlled double-nozzles approach for electrochemical additive manufacturing

ABSTRACT

The electrochemical additive manufacturing technique based on the meniscus-confined approach has been proved to be a powerful tool for fabricating nanoscale and microscale metal components. The stability of the meniscus is the key in this meniscus-confined approach to achieve high resolution and reliable product quality. In the present study, a double-nozzles design, which consists of a feed nozzle and a suction nozzle, is proposed for the meniscus confined electrochemical additive manufacturing technique. It was demonstrated that the proposed design possessed robust control of the stability of the meniscus by manipulating the feed and suction rates of the two nozzles in a quite large range. Various sizes of menisci can be easily obtained by utilising nozzles with different sizes. Compared with the pressure-controlled single-nozzle approach, the results showed that dense structures without dendrites can be fabricated by the double-nozzles design with larger current density due to the feed-and-suction process at the tip of the nozzles. The proposed flow-rate-controlled double-nozzles design was finally employed to fabricate some copper circuits and a Cu/CuNi thin film thermocouple to demonstrate its potential in fabricating electronic devices.

KEYWORDS:

• Electrochemical additive manufacturing
• meniscus-confined approach
• double-nozzles
• stability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability

The raw/processed data required to reproduce these findings is available from the corresponding authors on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the scientific research cultivation project of Sun Yat-sen University [grant number 20lgpy09].

Notes on contributors

Yawen Guo

Yawen Guo is a graduate student in Prof. Yang's lab in School of Materials Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China. Her research focuses on the application of electrochemical additive manufacturing on electronics.

Pengpeng Liu

Pengpeng Liu was a graduate student in Prof. Yang's lab in School of Materials Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China. He has graduated and obtained his Master degree on June, 2021. His research focuses on the application of electrochemical additive manufacturing on electronics.

Pengfei Jiang

Pengfei Jiang was born on June 8th, 1992 at Nanchang City, Jiangxi Provence, China. He started to learn numerical simulations in September 2016 at Nangchang University with Prof. hui Zheng. In 2019, he got his master degree in Structural Engineering and started his Ph.D study in Nangchang University with Prof. hui Zheng. In May 2019, he finished his master study with thesis theme 'Numerical simulation of progressive collapse resistance of RCS connection based on local radial basis function collocation meshless method'. In 2021 to 2023, he will visit Bauhaus University in Germany for two years as a Joint Ph.D student, hosted by Prof. Timon Rabczuk. His research interests are: application of engineering with meshless methods, computational mechanics, building resistance to progressive collapse.

Yongshuai Hua

Yongshuai Hua was an undergraduate researcher in Prof. Shi's lab. His research was focused on the electropolymerization of conductive polymers.

Kaiyuan Shi

Kaiyuan Shi is an Associate Professor at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University. His research encompasses the areas of electrochemistry, materials chemistry, energy storage, and surface & coating technology.

Hui Zheng

Dr.-Ing Hui Zheng was born on July 1st 1986 at Shangrao City, Jiangxi Provence, China. He started to learn numerical simulations in June 2009 at Hohai University with Prof. Wenchen. In 2012, he got his master degree in Engineering mechanics and started his Ph.D study in University of Siegen under the supervision of Prof. Chuanzeng Zhang. In August 2016, he finished his Ph.D study with thesis theme 'The local RBF collcoations method for phononic cystals'. Later, he worked in the Coventry University, UK, as a research Associate. In 2016 and 2014, he has respectively visited IMT in Slovenia for one month as a visiting researcher, hosted by Prof. Bozidar Sarler. In September 2017 he joined Nanchang University, and in 2019 he worked as a professor in Nanchang University, his research interests are: numerical simulations, wave propagations, phononic crystals, and large deformations.

Yabin Yang

YabinYang is an Associate Professor at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University. His research encompasses the areas of electrochemical additive manufacturing, process simulation of metal additive manufacturing, and multiscale modelling for composite structures.