Investigation of Electro-Thermal property for Cu-MWCNT composite coating on anodized 6061 aluminium alloy

摘要

In this paper, electrodeposition process was used for deposition of copper based mull-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) nanocomposite coating on 6061 aluminium in order to enhance the electrical and thermal properties. The method of anodization of aluminium alloy was applied prior to plating to get highly adherent Cu-MWCNT composite coating. Ammonium bi-fluoride (NH4F center dot HF), a fluorine-containing inorganic substances was added to the anodized solution to increase the porosity of the anodized aluminium alloy surface. Cetyl Tri-methyl Ammonium Bromide (CTAB) cationic surfactant was added in electrolytic bath to get stable, colloidal and uniform dispersed MWCNT copper sulphate solution. The characterization and compositional analysis of the developed Cu-MWCNT composite coating was investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and x-ray diffraction (XRD). The electrical and thermal conductivity were measured for the pure copper coated and Cu-MWCNT nanocomposite coated samples, respectively. It was found that incorporation of MWCNTs in the copper coatings enhanced the electrical conductivity by 59.63%, 103.67% and 128.44%, respectively for Cu-MWCNT (0.5 gL(-1), 0.75 gL(-1) and 1 gL(-1), respectively) nanocomposite coated specimens compared to pure copper coated specimen. The thermal conductivity of Cu-MWCNTs (0.5 gL(-1)) composite coated sample was improved by 95.62% compared to uncoated 6061 aluminium specimen.