Preparation Of Silver Particle Film And Deposition Kinetics On Polyethylene By Electroless Plating

Silver films have potential application as antibacterial materials,packing materials,conductive and reflective films due to their excellent properties.However,less studies were done to investigate the preparation of the silver particle film and the deposition kinetics on polyethylene,especially,by electroless plating which is a convenient technology with low cost.In this paper,silver particle films were deposited on polyethylene by electroless silver plating,a simple and easy technological way.And silver deposition kinetics have been explained in detail.In this paper,the preparation process of silver particle film on polyethylene was studied in detail,which mainly includes the pretreatment of polyethylene substrate and electroless silver plating.X-ray diffraction,scanning electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were performed to characterize the silver particle film on polyethylene.The results showed that silver particle film was deposited on the polyethylene substrate by a redox reaction.The deposition process of silver particle film was studied in detail by analyzing the relationship between the deposition amount and rate of silver with time under different technological parameters.The results showed that,the shape of curves of silver deposition amount with time was "inverted S" while the shape of curves of silver deposition rate with time was “mountain peak".According to the curve of silver deposition rate with time,the deposition process of silver particle film could be divided into three stages: incubation,acceleration,and deceleration.With the increment of silver nitrate,potassium sodium tartrate concentration or reaction temperature,the deposition amount of silver would increase gradually at the same reaction time;the deposition rate of silver increased gradually before the rate reached maximum;the time that silver deposition rate reached maximum would gradually reduce.The deposition process of the silver particle film could be explained by the "hemispherical autocatalytic deposition kinetic model" while the experimental results were in agreement with the model.By studying the different effects of various reactant concentrations and reaction temperature on the deposition rate of silver,the deposition kinetics of silver particle film was analyzed.By calculation,the rate equation of and the apparent activation energy of the silver electroless reaction were obtained.Finally,owing to some shortcomings,the pretreatment process was explored and optimized.A new technology was put forward,which is simpler and with lower cost.