Optimal electroless plating rate enhancement techniques for the fabrication of low cost dense nickel/ceramic composite membranes

Addressing combinatorial plating characteristics for dense metal ceramic composite membranes, this article attempts to identify the most suitable electroless plating rate enhancement technique. The support morphology considered for this work corresponds to low combinations of pore size and porosity. Cases considered for comparative assessment include conventional electroless plating (CEP), surfactant induced electroless plating (SIEP) and sonication induced electroless plating (SOEP). BET, FTIR, XRD, FESEM and nitrogen permeation techniques were employed for surface and physical characterization. It was observed that with SIEP the average metal film thickness was about 18.3 μm and with SOEP it was 24.6 μm. Correspondingly it was also observed that for SIEP baths the ratio of percent pore densification (PPD) to metal film thickness (δ) i.e. PPD/δ varied from 11.2 to 5.35 and for SOEP baths PPD/δ varied from 3.5 to 4.7 for 8–24 h of sequential plating. Thereby, it was inferred that SIEP possessed maximum potential towards dense metal ceramic composite membrane fabrication for the realization of maximum PPD with minimal metal film thickness.