Hi there in Boston College

To doposite Al by electroplating You have to use inert atmosphere.

Moreover, no water (even no traces !!!) in the solution.

Best, Prof. Vitaly Bondarenko

Aluminum is difficult to electroplate, because the oxide is so stable and because the reduction potential of aluminum is quite low. Any oxygen or water present will produce the oxide, and the electrolyte needs to be extremely resistant to reduction. In a plating bath that contains LiAlH4 is described. That's a strong reducing agent that reacts quickly with water.

In essence, you need to keep water and oxygen out at all cost. That means dry solvents, parts and precursors. That can be accomplished in a glove box, but it's also thinkable to use a completely sealed electroplating setup with loadlock and whatnot. But I think you'd have to develop one.

As a side question, would it be possible to laminate an aluminum foil onto your ITO instead of plating?

You could also screen print aluminum powder and then sinter it in an oven with inert atmosphere.

A multilayer with, say, 100 nm Al, 100 nm Cu , Ag or Ni sputtered as a plating base and then Cu, Ag or Ni electroplated would also work, perhaps? Ni is convenient to plate with various methods, as far as I have heard. My guess is that you need Al as some form of contact metal that makes an ohmic contact with the ITO and gives a very low serial resistance. I'd use an Al/Cu/Cu sandwich in that case.

Aluminium materials is easily exposed to atmospheric conditions like air, water or oxygen containing substances and then aluminum oxide is formed on the surface. you have mentioned electrolytic deposition of Al was done by using inert gas with the help of glove box. You can carried out this experiment in high vacuum region. I think , the purpose of inert gas to avoid oxidizing the material surfaces. if you carried out in high vacuum region, this may be avoided oxide forming. so please try t o do in high vacuum, if it is failure, you consider about inert gas usage.

Hi there in Boston College

To doposite Al by electroplating You have to use inert atmosphere.

Moreover, no water (even no traces !!!) in the solution.

Best, Prof. Vitaly Bondarenko

Hi there,

Under inert atmosphere/ vacuum is the recommended to apply when depositing AI by electroplating

Oxidation of the Al is the problem, because Al-oxide will be formed and will be stable on the surface. So it is better to do the process in absence of oxygen or water.

PVD techniques, namely magnetron sputtering, may be used to deoposit high purity Al fimls with much greater thickness than 1 or 2 microns. Perhaps you should not drop the idea of using such techniques so quickly !

Try to do search Al plating AND ionic liquids. BASF company, the advertising of which you'll found as the 1-st reference, tells "Inert conditions, technical N2

(no glove-box necessary)". I never try this method, but I'm interested is it true or just an advertising. Pls., let me know if you'll try .

Your choice may also depend on your application. the PVD or e-beam deposited films may be more dense and uniform than the electrodeposited films. The electrodeposited films may be textured, porous or dendridic depending on parameters of the process. If for example you wanted to make nano-pores that could be a problem.

You can obtain a low cost glove box by searching under Inflatable glove box or glove bag. For greatest protection you might use a bag within a bag with the intervening space filled with inert gas. The plastic material will allow some diffusion of gas through so the double bag reduces even further gas diffusion if you found some oxygen still passing through a single layer.

Aluminum can also be plasma sprayed which would allow much thicker coatings.

Journal of Materials Science Letters

1 May 1992, Volume 11, Issue 9, pp 573-574

Plasma-sprayed aluminium coating

J. Ilavsky, J. Forman, P. Chraska

Microstructure and wear properties of plasma-sprayed aluminum–silicon–polyester coatings

Mustafa Öksüz1,*,

Hüseyin Yıldırım2,

Seyfettin Erturan3

Journal of Applied Polymer Science

Volume 100, Issue 5, pages 3609–3614, 5 June 2006

You should try electrodeposition from non-aqueous electrolyte at temperature strongly above water boiling point i.e.AlCl3 from DMSO, or something like that. In industryAl is being electrodeposited from molten salts, same as Mg or Ti. Good luck!

It is a question of the Al-compound, you use. Ionic-Liquid (AlCl3) needs "only" a water-free atmosphere (HCl; alumina). In the case of AlBr3 in organic solution similary hydrolysis reaction can be observed. Clove-box and dry nitrogen are sufficiant.

Hydride compounds or organo-metal compounds of Al must be handeld strictly

in oxigen free and super-dry atmosphere (Argon, special glove box).