On the morphology and corrosion behavior of Ni nanostructures electrodeposited in the presence of different surfactants

In this work, Ni nano structures with different surface morphology have been electrodeposited from the Waths bath using direct current (DC) and pulsed reverse current (PRC) techniques in the presence of three types of surfactants. CTAB, SDS, and Triton x-100 have been used as cathionic, anionic and nonionic surfactants respectively. The surfactants concentration have been selected at below, equal to and above the corresponding critical micelle concentration (CMC). The SEM analyses show that the porosity and homogeneity of the electrodeposited samples depend on the surfactant type and its concentration. In the presence of CTAB, electrodeposition process has been certainly hindered in some region. For SDS, nano-particles with the same charges repel each other and disperse in a more uniform way. In the presence of Triton x-100, agglomeration of particles is seen and particles are not dispersed. The corrosion behavior of electrodeposited samples has also been investigated in 1 M NaOH solution using Tafel potentiodynamic polarization method as well as electrochemical impedance spectroscopy analyses. It is observed that all samples have low corrosion current density and the sample prepared above the CMC point of SDS has the lowest corrosion rate. In addition, according to our findings, the electrodeposited samples using DC method have larger particle sizes and lower corrosion rate.