Carbon fabrics coated with nickel film through alkaline electroless plating technique

The nickel-coated carbon fabric with continuous and uniform coating was fabricated at 85 degrees C by a simple electroless plating method. Sodium hypophosphite served as an environmental-friendly reducing agent. The carbon fabric substrate was pre-treated by cleaning, etching, sensitization, and activation processes. It was found that the reaction temperature and amount of reducing agent played important roles for the formation of perfect nickel coating. The carbon fabric covered with a compact and uniform nickel layer possessed the minimum volume resistivity of 5.50 x 10-(3) Omega center dot cm. Such composites can be used as flexible electrode materials, shielding materials and so forth. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.