Phase identification in electrodeposited Ag–Cd alloys by anodic linear sweep voltammetry and X-ray diffraction techniques

During electrodeposition of Ag–Cd alloy coatings phenomena of self-organization and formation of spatio-temporal structures can be observed. The difficulties in the determination of the local phase composition in the observed structures are mostly connected with the strong heterogeneity of the coatings consisting of several alloy phases. The results obtained with electrochemical techniques, such as anodic linear sweep voltammetry (ALSV) are compared with results obtained by X-ray analysis and SEM. In the proposed electrolyte for dissolution of Ag–Cd alloy coatings (12 M LiCl + 0.1 M HCl) the dissolution peaks of the pure metals, Ag and Cd, have a potential difference of about 700 mV. The peaks, corresponding to the alloy phases, are situated between the dissolution potentials of Ag and Cd, their height depending on the deposition current density, i.e. on the percentage content of the alloy. Different phases (Ag, Ag3Cd, AgCd, AgCd3 and pure Cd) are observed in the coatings deposited at different cathodic potentials. A good correlation between the XRD spectra of the Ag–Cd alloy coatings and the ALSV data obtained during their dissolution is established.