Adhesion improvement of electroless copper to ABS resin by low environmental pollution surface etching system

Abstract

The adhesion strength between acrylonitrile–butadiene–styrene (ABS) resin and electroless copper can be improved significantly by a low environmental pollution etching system containing H₂SO₄–MnO₂–Na₄P₂O₇–H₂O colloid as a replacement for conventional chromic acid etching solutions. In this paper, the effects of the H₂SO₄ concentration and Na₄P₂O₇ content on the surface topography, surface roughness and the adhesion strength were studied. When the H₂SO₄ concentration was 12·9M, good etching performance was obtained. The average adhesion strength between the electroless copper and ABS substrate reached 1·30 kN m⁻¹. The surface contact angle measurement indicated that the ABS surface became hydrophilic and the contact angle decreased from 92·1 to 31·2°.

Keywords:

• Surface etching
• ABS metallisation
• Surface roughness
• Electroless copper
• Adhesion strength

The authors would like to thank the Research Fund for the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 21273144), Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (grant no. 20110202110004) and Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in the University of China (IRT1070) for supporting this research.