Electrodeposition of Nickel onto 12K Carbon Fibre Tow in a Continuous Manner

Nickel-coated carbon fibre (NiCCF) is an important composite material, which finds nu- merous engineering applications, primarily within: computer, telecommunication, automotive and military industries. In general, NiCCF can be produced by one of the three methods, namely: chemical vapour deposition (CVD), electroless, and electrochemical (galvanic) deposition of Ni on a carbon fibre tow material. The present paper reports a study of the process of nickel electrodeposition (at ultrathin layers of ≈ 0.3–0.5 μm) onto the surface of 12K (12000 single filaments) carbon fibre (CF) tow, carried-out in a continuous way. In addition, the effect of selected pre-treatments applied to carbon fibre, as well as that of operational parameters of the process, on the quality of the NiCCF product were investigated. (doi: 10.5562/cca1743