Cloner
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making alloys by electrochemistry
Is it possible to get alloys by electrodepositing? For example, the GaIn eutectic.
It seems to me that the energetic preference of the materials to be in an alloy alters the precise redox potentials.
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12AX7
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I know brass is electroplated, for example. I also read something about microdeposition where layers were alternated by different voltage
preferrentially depositing one metal.
What's so hard about Ga-In that it needs to be electrodeposited? Fuse it in a paper cup!
Tim
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Cloner
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sure, GaIn or GaAs is no problem to obtain commercially. BUT I want to make these materials in a coating or in pores of a zeolite which requires
electrodeposition. Or in colloids.
You write that you would alter the voltages. I assume this means pulses of voltage 1 alternated by a pulse of voltage 2, with the pulse duration in
the order of a millisecond?
Would this approach create a material that somehow resembles an alloy? I can imagine that this would make extremely well mixed layers of metal, but
not precisely the same as the alloy. Anyway, a heat treatment step would probably lead to mobility of the atoms so that they would find the
'perfect' place to sit down and resemble one of the stable alloy compositions.
All this would be extremely difficult though. But well, if it wasn't there would not be any reason to do it I suppose.
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12AX7
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Yes, depending on the materials, diffusion will take care of homogenity. If GaIn eutectic is liquid at room temperature, clearly the atoms are more
than mobile enough.  If you're plating out an eutectic that is not molten
at room temperature, as a matter of fact that's the same structure it has on freezing! (As it freezes, one metal comes out of solution, then
because the remaining liquid is shifted away from that, the other crystallizes, and so forth it makes a very fine lammelar structure.)
For sure I'm no help on the chemical or electrical particulars of the process... I can't even get damned copper to plate 
Tim
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Archimede
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Would it work to have 2 or more (different metals) anodes and a circuit that alternate sending some mS pulses on each one?
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12AX7
Post Harlot
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I don't think so, the ions don't transmit instantly across the solution from anode to cathode. What plates out is whatever is in solution
immediately around the cathode.
Tim
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