ION TRANSPORT AND DEPOSIT IN SPATIALLY COUPLED BIPOLAR ELECTROCHEMISTRY

BRADLEY J.C., DENGRA SILVINA, GONZÁLEZ GRACIELA, MARSHALL GUILLERMO, MOLINA FERNANDO

JOURNAL OF ELECTROANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY

ELSEVIER SCIENCE

Lugar: SOUTHAMPTON, UK; Año: 1999 vol. 478 p. 128 - 139

0022-0728

Nota: el orden de los autores es alfabético, y este trabajo se encuentra integramente incluido en mi trabajo de tesis doctoral. RESUMEN: In spatially coupled bipolar electrochemistry, electrodissolution and electrodeposition processes in an applied electric field are exploited to create directional growth of copper deposits between two copper discs not physically linked to an external voltage source. Here we study the electric field in the whole cell through theoretical modelling, and ion transport in the interdisc region using optical and particle image velocimetry techniques. Their combined effect on incubation time and deposit morphology is assesed. Both the electric field and ion transport in the interdisc region are crucial factors in the characteristics of the interconnection. The model simulations reveal that the electric field is almost an order of magnitude larger in the region between discs as compared with the mean field value. Measurements and simulations show that the incubation time scales linearly with the inverse of the electric field, an indication that in this period migration is the dominant transport mode. Experiments reveal that after branching develops, convection plays a relevant role as well, the contact growing linearly in time, with a change of the time/length slope at half the interdisc gap.