Conditions that bicontinuous microemulsions must fulfill to be used as template for electrodeposition of nanostructures

• We propose what general conditions are necessary for template electrodeposition in bicontinuous microemulsions.
• New metal nano/microstructures have been obtained by electrochemical deposition in bicontinuous microemulsions.
• We propose an electrochemical indirect method for visualizing the structure of some microemulsions.

The conditions to obtain metal micro/nanostructures by templated electrodeposition using bicontinuous microemulsions have been proposed. For this, different microemulsions have been tested to discover, analyze and generalize the conditions that must fulfill in order to act as a template for metal electrodeposition. Bicontinuous microemulsions were selected to provide enough conductivity to permit the process at significant velocity. Using the cobalt deposition process from a single bath in the aqueous component of the microemulsion as a test, the relation between the nature of the microemulsions and the template capacity in the electrodeposition process has been deduced. Depending on the characteristics of each selected microemulsion, either continuous or nanostructured deposits (porous films or particles of 20–50 nm) were obtained. The conditions for which the microemulsions act as templates in the electrodeposition are: (1) immiscibility of oil and aqueous solution components, (2) low dielectric constant of the oil to favor the non-dissolution of the electroactive species, (3) the use of a surfactant that avoids the solubilization of electroactive species. Also, the possibility of using an electrodeposition method to characterize the structure of some microemulsions has been demonstrated.

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