Electroless silver plating on modified fly ash particle surface

Abstract Ag-plated fly ash (FA) powders were prepared through modified electroless plating, which could be utilized for manufacturing conductive polymers for Electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding applications. In order to improve the FA surface activity, alkali cleaning and coupling modification were employed. Extensive characterizations of Ag-plated FA particles were carried out by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) techniques. The mechanism of electroless Ag plating was mainly studied by using XPS. The XPS results showed that the diammonia functional group from the coupling agent adsorbed silver ions to form the N-Ag coordination bond and produce pure Ag film. In addition, electrical conductivity and electromagnetic properties were studied by Four-probe resistance tester and vector network analyzer, respectively. The results indicated that uniform and compact Ag films were formed on FA particle surface strongly after alkali cleaning and coupling modification. The electrical conductivity of the as-prepared 0.6-FA-S-Ag particles with a coated thickness of 200 nm was about 8.2 × 10−5 Ω·cm. The electromagnetic parameters and calculated reflection loss indicate that Ag-plated FA powders have no magnetic conductivity and the main contribution of electromagnetic loss comes from dielectric loss.