Effect of boric acid on the nucleation and growth of Ni nanoparticles for CNT growth

摘要

The effect of boric acid on the electrochemical deposition of nickel nanoparticles is presented in this paper. We show that lowering the concentration of H_3BO_3 in the electrolyte increases the particle density. At the same time, it was observed that the deposition of nickel stops at an earlier stage when a low concentration of boric acid was used. Both observations can be explained by the formation of an insoluble Ni(OH)_2 which was counteracted by the addition of H_3BO_3. We were able to reduce the current density needed to obtain similar particle densities by almost an order of magnitude.