Ionic electrodeposition

Cations Good ionic Electrodeposition C xiic voltaiimietry... 

Chloroaluminate(III) ionic liquid systems are perhaps the best established and have been most extensively studied in the development of low-melting organic ionic liquids with particular emphasis on electrochemical and electrodeposition applications, transition metal coordination chemistry, and in applications as liquid Lewis acid catalysts in organic synthesis. Variable and tunable acidity, from basic through neutral to acidic, allows for some very subtle changes in transition metal coordination chemistry. The melting points of [EMIM]C1/A1C13 mixtures can be as low as -90 °C, and the upper liquid limit almost 300 °C [4, 6]. 

The early history of ionic liquid research was dominated by their application as electrochemical solvents. One of the first recognized uses of ionic liquids was as a solvent system for the room-temperature electrodeposition of aluminium [1]. In addition, much of the initial development of ionic liquids was focused on their use as electrolytes for battery and capacitor applications. Electrochemical studies in the ionic liquids have until recently been dominated by work in the room-temperature haloaluminate molten salts. This work has been extensively reviewed [2-9]. Development of non-haloaluminate ionic liquids over the past ten years has resulted in an explosion of research in these systems. However, recent reviews have provided only a cursory look at the application of these new ionic liquids as electrochemical solvents [10, 11]. 

Section 6.2.1 offers literature data on the electrodeposition of metals and semiconductors from ionic liquids and briefly introduces basic considerations for electrochemical experiments. Section 6.2.2 describes new results from investigations of process at the electrode/ionic liquids interface. This part includes a short introduction to in situ Scanning Tunneling Microscopy. 

It was quite recently reported that La can be electrodeposited from chloroaluminate ionic liquids [25]. Whereas only AlLa alloys can be obtained from the pure liquid, the addition of excess LiCl and small quantities of thionyl chloride (SOCI2) to a LaCl3-sat-urated melt allows the deposition of elemental La, but the electrodissolution seems to be somewhat Idnetically hindered. This result could perhaps be interesting for coating purposes, as elemental La can normally only be deposited in high-temperature molten salts, which require much more difficult experimental or technical conditions. Furthermore, La and Ce electrodeposition would be important, as their oxides have interesting catalytic activity as, for instance, oxidation catalysts. A controlled deposition of thin metal layers followed by selective oxidation could perhaps produce cat-alytically active thin layers interesting for fuel cells or waste gas treatment. 

Tellurium and cadmium Electrodeposition of Te has been reported [33] in basic chloroaluminates the element is formed from the [TeCl ] complex in one four-electron reduction step, furthermore, metallic Te can be reduced to Te species. Electrodeposition of the element on glassy carbon involves three-dimensional nucleation. A systematic study of the electrodeposition in different ionic liquids would be of interest because - as with InSb - a defined codeposition with cadmium could produce the direct semiconductor CdTe. Although this semiconductor can be deposited from aqueous solutions in a layer-by-layer process [34], variation of the temperature over a wide range would be interesting since the grain sizes and the kinetics of the reaction would be influenced. 

The electrodeposition of Ag has also been intensively investigated [41 3]. In the chloroaluminates - as in the case of Cu - it is only deposited from acidic solutions. The deposition occurs in one step from Ag(I). On glassy carbon and tungsten, three-dimensional nucleation was reported [41]. Quite recently it was reported that Ag can also be deposited in a one-electron step from tetrafluoroborate ionic liquids [43]. However, the charge-transfer reaction seems to play an important role in this medium and the deposition is not as reversible as in the chloroaluminate systems. 

ZnTe The electrodeposition of ZnTe was published quite recently [58]. The authors prepared a liquid that contained ZnGl2 and [EMIM]G1 in a molar ratio of 40 60. Propylene carbonate was used as a co-solvent, to provide melting points near room temperature, and 8-quinolinol was added to shift the reduction potential for Te to more negative values. Under certain potentiostatic conditions, stoichiometric deposition could be obtained. After thermal annealing, the band gap was determined by absorption spectroscopy to be 2.3 eV, in excellent agreement with ZnTe made by other methods. This study convincingly demonstrated that wide band gap semiconductors can be made from ionic liquids. 

Germanium In situ STM studies on Ge electrodeposition on gold from an ionic liquid have quite recently been started at our institute [59, 60]. In these studies we used dry [BMIM][PF<3] as a solvent and dissolved Gel4 at estimated concentrations of 0.1-1 mmol 1 the substrate being Au(lll). This ionic liquid has, in its dry state, an electrochemical window of a little more than 4 V on gold, and the bulk deposition of Ge started several hundreds of mV positive from the solvent decomposition. Furthermore, distinct underpotential phenomena were observed. Some insight into the nanoscale processes at the electrode surface is given in Section 6.2.2.3. 

Electrodeposition of metals from ionic liquids Endres 3... 

Non-epitaxial electrodeposition occurs when the substrate is a semiconductor. The metallic deposit cannot form strong bonds with the substrate lattice, and the stability conferred by co-ordination across the interface would be much less than that lost by straining the lattices. The case is the converse of the metal-metal interface the stable arrangement is that in which each lattice maintains its equilibrium spacing, and there is consequently no epitaxy. The bonding between the met lic lattice of the electrodeposit and the ionic or covalent lattice of the substrate arises only from secondary or van der Waals forces. The force of adhesion is not more than a tenth of that to a metal substrate, and may be much less. 

Recently, a eutectic mixture of choline chloride and urea (commercially known as Reline) was used as a medium from which CdS, as well as CdSe and ZnS, thin films were electrodeposited for the first time [53]. Reline is a conductive room-temperature ionic liquid (RTIL) with a wide electrochemical window. The voltammetric behavior of the Reline-Cd(II)-sulfur system was investigated, while CdS thin films were deposited at constant potential and characterized by photocurrent and electrolyte electroabsorbance spectroscopies. 

Dobbs, W., Suisse, J.-M., Douce, L. and Welter, R. (2006) Electrodeposition of Silver Partides and Gold Nanopartides from Ionic Liquid-Crystal Precursors. Angewandte Chemie (International Edition in English), 45, 4179-4182. 

In electrogravimetry, also called electrodeposition, an element, e.g., a metal such as copper, is completely precipitated from its ionic solution on an inert cathode, e.g., platinum gauze, via electrolysis and the amount of precipitate is established gravimetrically in the newer and more selective methods one applies slow electrolysis (without stirring) or rapid electrolysis (with stirring), both procedures either with a controlled potential or with a constant current. Often such a method is preceded by an electrolytic separation using a stirred cathodic mercury pool, by means of which elements such as Fe, Ni, Co, Cu, Zn and Cd are quantitatively taken up from an acidic solution whilst other elements remain in solution. 

Endres, F., Ahhott, A.P., and MacFarlane, D.R. (eds) (2008) Electrodeposition from Ionic Liquids, Wiley-VCH Verlag, Weinheim. 

Relatively little attention has been devoted to the direct electrodeposition of transition metal-aluminum alloys in spite of the fact that isothermal electrodeposition leads to coatings with very uniform composition and structure and that the deposition current gives a direct measure of the deposition rate. Unfortunately, neither aluminum nor its alloys can be electrodeposited from aqueous solutions because hydrogen is evolved before aluminum is plated. Thus, it is necessary to employ nonaqueous solvents (both molecular and ionic) for this purpose. Among the solvents that have been used successfully to electrodeposit aluminum and its transition metal alloys are the chloroaluminate molten salts, which consist of inorganic or organic chloride salts combined with anhydrous aluminum chloride. An introduction to the chemical, electrochemical, and physical properties of the most commonly used chloroaluminate melts is given below. 

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