Electrodeposition future applications

Over the past two decades, ionic liquids (ILs) have attracted considerable interest as media for a wide range of applications. For electrochemical applications they exhibit several advantages over the conventional molecular solvents and high temperature molten salts they show good electrical conductivity, wide electrochemical windows of up to 6 V, low vapor pressure, non-flammability in most cases, and thermal windows of 300-400 °C (see Chapter 4). Moreover, ionic liquids are, in most cases, aprotic so that the complications associated with hydrogen evolution that occur in aqueous baths are eliminated. Thus ILs are suitable for the electrodeposition of metals and alloys, especially those that are difficult to prepare in an aqueous bath. Several reviews on the electrodeposition of metals and alloys in ILs have already been published [1-4], A selection of published examples of the electrodeposition of alloys from ionic liquids is listed in Table 5.1 [5-40]. Ionic liquids can be classified into water/air sensitive and water/air stable ones (see Chapter 3). Historically, the water-sensitive chloroaluminate first generation ILs are the most intensively studied. However, in future the focus will rather be on air- and water-stable ionic liquids due to their variety and the less strict conditions under which... 

In this chapter some results on the electrodeposition of alloys from ionic liquids are summarized. Many fundamental studies have been performed in chloroaluminate first generation ionic liquids but the number of studies employing air- and water-stable ionic liquids rather than the chloroaluminates is increasing. Currently, new ionic liquids with better electrochemical properties are being developed. For example, Abbott et al. [47] have prepared a series of ionic liquids by mixing commercially available low-cost choline chloride and MCI2 (M = Zn, Sn) or urea and demonstrated that these ILs are good media for electrodeposition for pure metals (see Chapter 4.3). It can be expected that in the near future, the electrodeposition of alloys from ILs may become available for industrial applications. Furthermore, due to their variety, their wide electrochemical and thermal windows air- and water-stable ionic liquids have unprecedented prospects for electrodeposition. 

In conclusion, it has been shown that the SERS techniques offer a means of sensitive detection of probe molecules. An efficient and simple SERS-active substrate prepared by electrodeposition of Ag on MWCNTs has been developed. The prepared Ag-MWCNT nanocomposites exhibited good SERS performance and also featured a simple application process. The technique may have a potential use for in situ determination of analytes. Therefore, such a work will lead to a very promising future for applications in SERS chemical sensors. 

This chapter concerns with theory and application of electrodeposition techniques used for fabrication of components for high and low temperature fuel cells, supercapacitors, and lithium ion batteries. Recent progress and possible future research directions in each field will be discussed. 

In Chapter 3, by Shaigan, electrodeposition for electrochemical conversion and storage devices is presented. This chapter discusses the latest developments on metal, metal oxide, and conductive polymer electrodeposition processes developed and studied for the applications in the fields of fuel cells, batteries, and capacitors. The importance of electrodeposited materials, which are used or may have the future potential applications in the energy conversion or storage, is clearly shown. 

A number of reviews have appeared on the function of different types of photoinitiators and their future development and applications. A number of articles have targeted interest in photosensitive polyelectrolyte diazo systems," pressure sensitive adhesives and coatings, bonding of epoxy resins, electrodeposition materials, heat transfer in thick films, ring opening metathesis and curing for microelectronics. ... 

In addition to the role of bubbles, our technique can provide other kinds of valuable information. We specihcally note the possibility to image the ionic concentration see Ref. [2]. This creates another significant difference between our approach and more conventional studies the corresponding information is not easy to obtain otherwise. We also note that the technique can be applied in real time to monitor electrodeposition on microscopic structures. This approach can be used, for example, to study the growth on microtrenches. Once again, comparable dynamic information would be quite difficult to obtain otherwise, and is very valuable for many practical applications. The near future of this developing field is therefore quite clear our general approach can be applied to a variety of electrodeposition phenomena. The technique can be specifically used to optimize the... 

Looking to the future, this capillary-assisted bipolar electrodeposition can be generalized to other types of nanoobjects and also deposits of a very different nature such as other metals, semiconductors, or polymers. The approach, therefore, opens up the way to a whole new family of experiments leading to complex nano-objects with an increasingly sophisticated design allowing original applications. 

Electrochemical deposition enables wide applications of porous silicon in many fields such as optics, sensing, microfabrication, and catalysis. Fine tuning in morphology of deposits, which is crucial for applications, has been desired. As reviewed in this chapter, control of metal electrodeposition has greatly improved in the recent decades. However, there still exist many open questions, such as nucleation and growth and mass transfer for 3D structure formation. They are doubtlessly important and seem to be future issues. 

The future of cathodic metal removal seems to be fruitful, since it is a mature technology, and there is a wide variety of cell designs commercially available nowadays. A promising field of application is recovery of precious metals from, e.g., spent catalysts and printed circuit boards, in which cell design and cell potential are usually not critical due to the value of the metal. Selective metal electrodeposition from a mixture of different ions is still a challenge, especially when the electrodeposition overpotentials are very close. 

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