Perspectives for Deep Eutectic Solvents and Ionic Liquid Analogues in Metal Electroplating

Here we will specifically describe the opportunities and perspectives offered by non-aqueous so-called deep eutectic solvents (DES) and ionic liquid analogues (ILA) in the materials finishing and metal electroplating industries. We will describe a range of plating and dissolution processes from anti-corrosion coatings to new battery technologies. Details will be presented of the plating and characterisation techniques using some novel in-situ methods. These include electrochemical processing and characterisation as well as a number of cutting-edge surface methodologies including acoustic resonance methods, ESR, EXAFS, atomic force microscopy, neutron scattering techniques and magnetic resonance imaging. We will describe a number of case-studies including electrolytic deposition of nickel, alloys such as Ni/Zn, and galvanic methods associated with Au and Ag coatings for the electronics industry. 1, 2, 3 In all these studies we have focused on a combination of fundamental chemical, electrochemical, structural and spectroscopic studies, maintaining close links with industrial partners through collaboration and scale-up trials. We will include very recent updates and future prospects on the use of ILA's in energy storage vectors such as Al secondary batteries. We will describe the advantages and drawbacks of DES and ILA systems in terms of functionality, sustainability and economic cost.