Electrolytical Entrapment of Organic Molecules within Metals

An electrolytical method is presented for the doping of metal with organic molecules (0.1-1% by weight). Several representative organic molecules, including dyes and polymers, have been entrapped in copper or silver using this procedure. The resulting doped metals have been characterized using TGA, UV-vis, SEM, EDS, and XRD. The dynamics of dye extraction from composites has been modeled, offering a means to quantify the leaching behavior of organics@metals. Typically, entrapped molecules are shown to be heterogeneously distributed within the composites, including a population which is entrapped tighter than with nonelectrolytic method.