Electro-deposition of tantalum on tungsten and nickel in LiF-NaF-CaF melt containing KTaF; Electrochemical study

Mehmood, M.*; Kawaguchi, Nobuaki*; Maekawa, Hideki*; Sato, Yuzuru*; Yamamura, Tsutomu*; Kawai, Masayoshi*; Kikuchi, Kenji

Electrochemical study has been carried out on the electro-deposition of tantalum in LiF-NaF-CaF melt containing KTaF at 700C. This has been done for determining the mechanistic features for preparing electrolytic coating of tantalum on nickel and tungsten substrates. Electro-deposition of metallic tantalum occurs primarily by electro-reduction of Ta(V). Pure metallic tantalum without any entrapped salt is successfully deposited on tungsten by galvanostatic polarization at reasonably low current densities. An additional feature on nickel is the formation of an intermetallic compound at potential 0.25V nobler than that of pure tantalum as a result of underpotential deposition of tantalum. This intermetallic compound covers the surface within a short time followed by deposition of pure tantalum, although intermetallic compound keeps growing at the interface of pure tantalum deposit and the substrate as a result of diffusion.