Accelerating effect of ammonia on electroless copper deposition.pdfVIP

Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry 600 2007 6–12 /locate/jelechem Accelerating e?ect of ammonia on electroless copper deposition in alkaline formaldehyde-containing solutions ˇ _ ˇ _ _ * Algirdas Vaskelis, Jane Jaciauskiene, Irena Stalnioniene, Eugenijus Norkus ˇ Department of Catalysis, Institute of Chemistry, A. Gostauto 9, LT-01108 Vilnius, Lithuania Received 13 December 2005; received in revised form 13 February 2006; accepted 1 March 2006 Available online 19 April 2006 In honour of Professor Boris Grafov on the occasion of his 70th birthday Abstract The in?uence of ammonia on autocatalytic reduction of Cu II by formaldehyde electroless copper plating in solution containing Cu II –EDTA complex and additives Na diethyldithiocarbamate and K Fe CN , was studied. Small additions of ammonia 1– 4 6 3 mM accelerated e?ectively the copper deposition at 20–30 C by a factor of 2–4. In presence of ammonia copper layers of a higher real surface area roughness factor Rf reached 22 and high electrocatalytic activity in anodic formaldehyde oxidation reaction were formed. The accelerating action of ammonia is explained by assuming that the copper surface of high catalytic activity forms at cathodic reduction of a mixed Cu II complex with EDTA and ammonia, and the liberated ammonia molecules participate again in the mixed complex formation at the copper surface. 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Electroless copper deposition; Solution equilibria; Formaldehyde anodic oxidation; Ammonia; Real surface area 1. Introduction aspects were studied for the last ?ve decades in a large num- ber of works; the results are summarized in review publica- Electroless copper deposition process is widely used for tions [1–5]. The in?uence of di?erent additives on process of the formation of metallic copper layers on plastics and electroless copper plating was inv