| Preparation of tungsten carbide powders by ultrasonic treatment for electroless plating |
| Paper ID : 1568-UFGNSM-FULL (R1) |
| Authors: |
|
Mohammad Amin Saadati1, Hossein Aghajani *2, Shaghayegh Biniazi1 1University of Tabriz 229 th Bahman Blvd. |
| Abstract: |
| In this paper a novel treatment was performed on tungsten carbide powders by water and ultrasonic homogenizer which is able to prepare the powders for electroless plating of cobalt by forming scratches on the powder. The main mechanism for preparation is to increase the specific surface area and surface catalytic activity by accelerating nucleation, growth and explosion of cavitation bubbles on the surface of tungsten carbide powders in a highly concentrated suspension of water and salt. Thus, this mechanism was used in an aqueous solution of NaCl and tungsten carbide powders (10 μm) in a 400W ultrasonic homogenizer for 1 hour. The scratches were formed by the high speed impacts of tungsten carbide powders to each other. BET analyzes proved that the specific surface area could be increased by forming these scratches. It was also proved that the nucleation and growth of the cobalt grains in coating layer has started on the scratches which shows that activated sites on the powder surface are formed. SEM, EDX and BET were used for analyzing the morphology of the powders and nucleation and growth of the coating, composition of the coating and analyzing the specific surface area. The results proved that the nucleation and growth process was successfully completed. |
| Keywords: |
| tungsten carbide, ultrasonic treatment, electroless plating, cobalt. |
| Status : Paper Accepted (Poster Presentation) |
