Study on Pulse-Reverse Electroplating Process for the Manufacturing of a Graphene-Based Coating

This work investigates the feasibility of increasing the electric conductivity of an AA1370 aluminium wire by using pulse-reverse electrodeposition to realize Cu-Graphene composite coating. The graphene adopted was in the form of nanoplates (GnP). To study the effects of plating parameters, a 2(3) factorial plan was developed and tested. During the tests, the following process parameters were varied: the current density, the frequency and the duty cycle. The ANalysis Of VAriance (ANOVA)) was adopted to evaluate their influence on the coated wires' morphology and electrical conductivity resistance. The results show that all the tested conditions allow good compactness to the coating, and the amount of graphene is well incorporated within the microstructure of the copper deposit. In addition, in the best conditions, the electrical resistivity decreases up to 3.4% than the uncoated aluminum.

Automated summary

This study investigates the feasibility of using pulse-reverse electrodeposition to increase the electric conductivity of an AA1370 aluminium wire by realizing Cu-Graphene composite coating. The effects of plating parameters were studied using a factorial plan and ANOVA. The results show that under the tested conditions, the coating is compact and the graphene is well incorporated, leading to a 3.4% decrease in electrical resistivity compared to the uncoated aluminum.