Preparation of Pd-Ni alloy nanowires by AAO template

Pd-Ni alloy nanowires arrays were successfully prepared in the nanopores of porous anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) membrane with 200 nn in diameter and 60 mu m in depth by DC electrochemical deposition technique. Two kinds of electrolytes, a pH 8.5 electrolyte composed of 60 mmol(.)dm(-3) Pd(NH3)(4)Cl-2, 40 mmol(.)dm(-3) NiSO(4)(.)6H(2)O, 0.2 mol(.)dm(-3) NH4Cl, and another pH 8.5 electrolyte of 70 mmol.dm 3 Pd(NH3)(4)Cl-2, 30 mmol.dm(-3) NiSO(4)(.)6H(2)O, 0.2 mol(.)dm(-3) NH4Cl, were adopted. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Energy-dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) were employed to characterize the morphologies and the compositions of Pd- Ni alloy nanowires, repectively. The research results show that Pd-Ni alloy nanowire arrays with 8wt%similar to 15wt% nickel content can be successfully fabricated by applying the potential ranging from -0.6 V similar to -0.8 V (vs SCE), and the diameters of alloy nanowires are equal to the diameters of the AAO nanopores. The more negative of the electrodoposition potentials will cause to the increase of current density, which benefits the increases of the Ni content with more negative potential.