Advanced electrochemical characterization of copper deposition

The electrodeposition of copper metal in a concentrated sulfuric acid solution is reported to occur through a four-step mechanism: (I) the dehydration of Cu2+ (H2O)6, (II) the reduction of Cu2+ to cu+, (III) the dehydration cu+ (H2O)6-x, (IV) the reduction of Cu+ to copper metal. The dehydration steps have been found to be responsible for the pH-dependence of the electrodeposition reaction. It is also reported, although not well understood, that the presence of Fe2+ ions affects the reaction kinetics. In this work, the kinetics of copper electrodeposition were studied using alternating current cyclic voltammetry. The reaction was studied at a copper rotating disk electrode with varying concentrations of Cu2+ and Fe2+ . At sufficiently low pH, and a sufficiently high concentration of Fe2+ , the deposition kinetics may be slowed enough to separately observe the two electron transfer steps involved in copper reduction. It was found that Fe2+ ions affect the electrodeposition kinetic by slowing down reaction kinetics, particularly the second electron transfer reaction.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Wagner, Mary Elizabeth, S.B. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Antoine Allanore.

• Materials Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/110960

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/110960