Simple and fast fabrication of conductive silver coatings on carbon fabrics via an electroless plating technique

• Published in: Materials letters Vol. 196; pp. 205 - 208
• Main Authors: Chen, Huiyu, Liao, Fan, Yuan, Zhongyun, Han, Xingrong, Xu, Chunju
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.06.2017; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Carbon fabrics; Coatings; Composite materials; Conductivity; Continuous coating; Electrical properties; Electroless deposition; Electroless plating; Electromagnetic shielding; Electronic materials; Fabrics; Glucose; Materials science; Scanning electron microscopy; Silver; X-ray diffraction; Electronic materials; Carbon fabrics; Composite materials; Electrical properties; Electroless deposition
• ISSN: 0167-577X; 1873-4979
• DOI: 10.1016/j.matlet.2017.03.070

Carbon fabric@silver core-shell structured composites were prepared via an electroless plating method using glucose as an environmentally friendly reducing reagent, and the optimal volume resistivity of such composites with compact silver layers could reach 8.99×10−4Ω·cm. [Display omitted] •Silver-coated carbon fabric composites were prepared via an electroless plating method.•Glucose was employed as an environmentally friendly reducing reagent.•The silver coating is compact, uniform, and continuous.•Such composites possessed an optimal volume conductivity of 8.99×10−4Ω·cm. In this work, silver-coated carbon fabric composites have been successfully fabricated via a simple and universal electroless plating method. The microstructures of the composites were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM), respectively. Glucose was employed as an environment-friendly reducing reagent. It was found that the reaction temperatures and the dosages of glucose played important roles for the formation of excellent silver coatings. The carbon fabric with a compact and continuous silver coating exhibited excellent conductivity, and the optimal volume resistivity could reach 8.99×10−4Ω·cm. Such composites would have potential applications in electromagnetic shielding fields.