A Galvanostatic Modeling for Preparation of Electrodeposited Nanocrystalline Coatings by Control of Current Density

The correlation between the grain size of electrodeposited coatings and the current densities was modeled by considering galvanostatic conditions. In order to test the model by experimental results, nanocrystalline (NC) nickel samples were deposited at different current densities using a Watts bath. The grain size of the deposits was evaluated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique. Model predictions were validated by finding a curve being the best-fit to the experimental results which were gathered from literature for different NC coatings in addition to those data measured in this research for NC nickel coatings. According to our model, the variation of grain size with the reciprocal of the current density follows a power law. A good agreement between the experimental results and model predictions was observed which indicated that the derived analytical model is applicable for producting the nanocrystalline electrodeposits with the desired grain size by controling current density.