Porous Architecture-Driven Electroless Nickel Plating in Conventional and Pickering PolyHIPEs

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Polymer Chemistry
• Surface Engineering

Background:

• Polymerized high internal phase emulsions (polyHIPEs) provide tunable, porous structures ideal for templating functional coatings.
• Metal-polymer hybrids are crucial for applications like catalysis and electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of emulsion stabilization methods (surfactant vs. Pickering) on polyHIPE pore structure.
• To evaluate how these structural differences affect electroless nickel plating and metal infiltration.
• To determine the influence of pore size and interconnectivity on metal deposition within polyHIPEs.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of polyHIPE thin films using conventional surfactant-stabilized and Pickering emulsions.
• Electroless nickel plating of the fabricated polyHIPE films.
• Characterization using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy-Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and X-ray Diffraction (XRD).

Main Results:

• Conventional polyHIPEs yielded smaller, uniform pores, leading to surface-limited nickel deposition.
• Pickering polyHIPEs formed larger, irregular pores with restricted interconnectivity.
• Despite lower interconnectivity, the larger pores in Pickering polyHIPEs facilitated deeper mass transport and uniform internal metallization.

Conclusions:

• Pore size magnitude can be more critical than interconnectivity in diffusion-limited metal plating processes.
• Pickering emulsion stabilization offers a route to control polyHIPE architecture for enhanced metal infiltration.
• Findings provide design principles for metal-polymer hybrids with tailored porosity for specific applications.