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A Versatile Precursor System for Supercritical Fluid Electrodeposition of Main‐Group Materials
Author(s) -
Bartlett Philip N.,
Burt Jennifer,
Cook David A.,
Cummings Charles Y.,
George Michael W.,
Hector Andrew L.,
Hasan Mahboba M.,
Ke Jie,
Levason William,
Pugh David,
Reid Gillian,
Richardson Peter W.,
Smith David C.,
Spencer Joe,
Suleiman Norhidayah,
Zhang Wenjian
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
chemistry – a european journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.687
H-Index - 242
eISSN - 1521-3765
pISSN - 0947-6539
DOI - 10.1002/chem.201503301
Subject(s) - supercritical fluid , electrolyte , raman spectroscopy , ternary operation , reagent , chemistry , inorganic chemistry , chemical engineering , materials science , organic chemistry , electrode , physics , computer science , optics , programming language , engineering
Abstract For the first time, a versatile electrolyte bath is described that can be used to electrodeposit a wide range of p‐block elements from supercritical difluoromethane (scCH 2 F 2 ). The bath comprises the tetrabutylammonium chlorometallate complex of the element in an electrolyte of 50×10 −3 mol dm −3 tetrabutylammonium chloride at 17.2 MPa and 358 K. Through the use of anionic ([GaCl 4 ] − , [InCl 4 ] − , [GeCl 3 ] − , [SnCl 3 ] − , [SbCl 4 ] − , and [BiCl 4 ] − ) and dianionic ([SeCl 6 ] 2− and [TeCl 6 ] 2− ) chlorometallate salts, the deposition of elemental Ga, In, Ge, Sn, Sb, Bi, Se, and Te is demonstrated. In all cases, with the exception of gallium, which is a liquid under the deposition conditions, the resulting deposits are characterised by SEM, energy‐dispersive X‐ray analysis, XRD and Raman spectroscopy. An advantage of this electrolyte system is that the reagents are all crystalline solids, reasonably easy to handle and not highly water or oxygen sensitive. The results presented herein significantly broaden the range of materials accessible by electrodeposition from supercritical fluid and open up the future possibility of utilising the full scope of these unique fluids to electrodeposit functional binary or ternary alloys and compounds of these elements.