Effect of the composition of polypyrrole substrate on the electrodeposition of copper and nickel

Electrodeposition of copper and nickel on a variety of substrates including conductive polymer films with two different compositions has been studied. The enhancement of the copper and nickel electrodeposition rate was observed for composite polypyrrole films with cation-exchange properties in comparison to undoped polypyrrole films with anion-exchange properties. Significant enhancement of the nickel electrodeposition rate on both types of conductive polymer vs. the bare gold electrode was also found. An explanation of these effects is presented. An electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM) with 10 MHz AT-cut piezoelectrodes was used in this study. Use of the EQCM technique allowed for simultaneous monitoring of voltamperometric and resonance frequency vs. potential or time characteristics. The thickness of electropolymerized polypyrrole films as well as the amounts of electrodeposited metals were controlled by monitoring the EQCM resonant frequency The nucleation density has been determined from scanning electron microscope experiments.