Effect of Pd concentration on electroless dense Pd-PSS membrane fabrication

Abstract

This work addresses the effect of palladium solution concentration on combinatorial plating characteristics of surfactant and sonication coupled electroless plating baths for the fabrication of dense palladium films on porous stainless steel substrates. All plating experiments were carried out using palladium solution concentration of 0·005 and 0·01M plating baths with cetyltrimethylammonium bromide surfactant at four critical micelle concentrations and loading ratio of 203 cm² L⁻¹. The evaluated combinatorial plating characteristics include selective conversion, plating efficiency, plating rate, Pd film thickness and per cent pore densification. The enhancement in palladium solution concentration was found to be insignificant to provide better combinatorial plating characteristics, and the plating bath consisting of 0·005M Pd solution concentration has provided 99·98% per cent pore densification with a Pd film thickness of 8·81 μm and plating efficiency of 80·69%.

Keywords:

• Surfactant
• Sonication
• Composite
• Membrane
• Pore densification

Acknowledgements

The research work reported in this work has been partially supported by a grant from the Department of Science and Technology (DST), New Delhi. The opinions, findings and conclusions presented in this article strictly correspond to that of the authors and do not present the views of the sanctioning authority.