Investigation on electroless metallized fused filament fabricated ABS parts

Metallization on plastic has become a handy and popular technique mainly for bringing out the merits of metals to the respective polymer substrate. In the present work, copper electroless metallization is performed, and the effect of deposition temperatures, deposition times, and etching times are examined on additive manufactured specimens. To investigate the effect of etching time, weight measurement of etched samples (5, 15, and 20 min) is performed. The deposition of copper under different conditions is compared as per the Taguchi methodology with the electrical performance and microscopic images. It can be observed from the electrical resistance measurements that conductivity increases and electrical resistance decrease with a higher deposition temperature of 70 degrees C when etched for 20 min and at a lower deposition time of 10 min. The weight measurement results confirm that higher etching time leads to better removal of butadiene due to the creation of more binding sites for metal atoms resulting in better copper metallization. Additionally, at higher deposition temperatures, more metal atoms are trapped in the polymer substrate, thereby increasing the extent of metallization. The results confirm with the microscopic images that metallization at higher deposition temperature, higher etching time, and lower deposition time exhibits better copper deposition.

Automated summary

In this study, copper electroless metallization was performed on additive manufactured specimens, and the effects of deposition temperatures, deposition times, and etching times were investigated. The electrical resistance measurements showed that higher deposition temperature and shorter deposition time resulted in increased conductivity and decreased electrical resistance. Weight measurements confirmed that longer etching time led to better removal of butadiene, creating more binding sites for metal atoms and improving copper metallization. Microscopic images also supported the findings that higher deposition temperature, longer etching time, and shorter deposition time exhibited better copper deposition.