Document Type
Article
Department/Program
Virginia Institute of Marine Science
Publication Date
2022
Journal
Sustainable Chemistry
Volume
3
Issue
2
First Page
238
Last Page
247
Abstract
This study investigated and compared the acid-free electropolishing of copper with the state-of-the-art acidic electropolishing process. The acid-free medium used in this study is based on a deep eutectic solvent comprised of 2:1 ethylene glycol and choline chloride. The electrochemical study included voltammetry and chronoamperometry tests during the electropolishing process. The characterization techniques used were atomic force microscopy (AFM) and digital microscopy, and surface morphology comparisons summarized the electropolishing efficiency of phosphoric acid and acid-free deep eutectic solvent treatments for high-purity copper. Electropolishing copper with a deep eutectic solvent resulted in a mirror finish and a post-treatment surface that was 8× smoother than the original metal surface prior to electropolishing treatments with a smoothing efficiency of 91.1 ± 1.5%. This eco-friendly solution produced polished surfaces superior to those surfaces treated with industry standard acid electrochemistry treatments of 1 M H3PO4.
DOI
doi: 10.3390/suschem3020015
Keywords
electropolishing; Cu; deep eutectic solvent
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Abdel-Fattah, Tarek M. and Loftis, Jon Derek, Comparison of Electrochemical Polishing Treatments between Phosphoric Acid and a Deep Eutectic Solvent for High-Purity Copper (2022). Sustainable Chemistry, 3(2), 238-247.
doi: 10.3390/suschem3020015
