Investigating and development of electroless plating catalyst and activation solution in electroplating industry

In this thesis, electroless nickel and copper plating on acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) engineering plastic were studied. Electroless plating is a fundamental step in the metal plating on the plastic. This step makes the plastic conductive and makes it possible to a homogeneous and hard plating. In the industry there are many distinct chemical materials both catalysts and activation solutions for the electroless bath. The main goal of the thesis is to develope the useful (or profitable) and environmental friendly activation solutions and catalysts for the electroless bath. In this thesis, the effects of the ionic liquids as catalyst, sanding paper size, and plating time were investigated at constant plating temperature and constant pH value. Experiments were carried out with two different types of ionic liquids, 1-ethyl-3-methyl imidazolium chloride (EMIC) and 1-ethyl 3-methylimidazolium dicyanamide (DCA), with 120-800 grit sandpaper by applying sand attrition process and 30-150 minutes of deposition time. Due to the results, both copper and nickel plating on ABS plastic was succeed. The surface morphology and amount of deposit analysis were done by Fischerscope X-Ray XDL-B System, X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM).