Study of copper electrodeposition in alkaline medium using pulsed current

Abstract

The electrodeposition of copper and its alloys from cyanide alkaline solutions is widely employed in industry to obtain high quality copper layers on ferrous and non-ferrous metals substrates. New processes of copper electroplating, from cyanide free baths, have been considered an alternative solution regarding the new environmental requirements. This work has a main objective to study the electrodeposition of copper ions from an alkaline cyanide-free bath, stabilized by two different complexing agents for the Cu 2+ ions: ethylenediamine and sodium citrate. In this study, the following techniques were employed: pulsed current, quartz microbalance, potentiodynamic and galvanostatic polarizations, forced convection using the rotating disk electrode, optical and electronic scanning microscopy. The current modulation influence was registered through quartz microbalance measurements. Results revealed that the use of pulsed current in sodium citrate and ethylenediamine media produced good results in the cathodic current and the copper deposit morphology.