Cougaris
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Copper Chloride as a solution
Greetings everyone!
Perhaps some of the forum goers can through me some help with this. As a part of a project I am currently undertaking, I have to make CuCl soluable,
to eventually be put into an emptied Inkjet cartridge and then printed out. I have come up with a few ideas and have taken a good amount of time to
raise my experience with the basics of chemistry, but would like to get some feedback off more experienced people. For your information, I come from a
physics oriented background, so chemistry is kind of new to me 
Anyway, I know that CuCl is soluable in concentrated HCL and ammonium hydroxide, but I'm thinking that such a solution would probably eat away
the cartridge pretty terrible. I was thinking that perhaps diluted HCL and CuCl mixed together and left for some time might produce the desired
effect, albeit without such viscious damage to the cartridge (of course there would be some damage, but I might be able to get some progress this
way).
What do you think of this approach? Am I missing any fundamental issues (I feel that maybe I am)? If you have any better ideas, I would like to hear
them. The trick is that the CuCl should try to retain as much of its properties as possible.
Having studied chemistry now for a short while, it is actually, a realy fascinating subject, from what I have studied so far (plus the chemistry book
I am reading effectively doubles as a weapon due to its weight  )
Anyway, thank you for your time!
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Marvin
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Copper(I) in solution tends to get oxidised by the air so Id be worried that being sprayed as a fine mist might not do much for it.
Ammonia would probably be the least generally corrosive, but hydroxides attack silicon, which might not do much for the print head.
I wonder if coating a sheet with the CuCl powder (with a tiny amount of glue), laying it face down on a second sheet when dry and running it through a
dot matrix printer would be the way to go. A bit like youd use carbon paper.
Whats the purpose?
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Saerynide
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the cartridge will probably survive conc HCl, according to this guide, but like Marvin said, I dont think the rest of the printer will like it. I dont think the paper will too
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Cougaris
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The inkjet process spews out dropplets, so I don't know if I would call that a mist . But I can see your concern. What I am working towards kind of makes that inevitable.
The purpose is to put down an array of fine CuCl dots, and then examine their properties by various semiconductor classification techniques. Oh, and
I'm not printing onto paper, but rather acetates (the transparent things ). I'd hate to be the sheet of paper that had to survive that!
Thanks for that guide - my fears of the HCL disolving the case in a rather spectacular fashion have been (somewhat) eased.
The fundamental objective is to print CuCl nanodots onto acetates or glass slides, using a commercial inkjet printer. Nh4Oh was another material that
can make CuCl soluable. Any thoughts on that? I'm thinking that the trial solution will now compose of CuCL, HCL and distilled water?
Again, all your input is appreciated.
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Proteios
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i first came across the idea of using injects to print cheap n simple circuits years ago... but only as a reseach project.... i dunno if it ever made
it commercial.
As for putting down an array of dots.... EVERYTHING here will be conditions. Atmosphere pressure, humidity, temperature, freshness of solutions,
concentration, composition, rate of ejection etc....Im sure something can be made to work, but finding the conditions is probably a pretty thankless
task.
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Cougaris
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Indeed, conditions are important. There is a limit to what I can work with however. As it stands, it will probably be room temperature printing. 
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Mr. Wizard
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Why not print a suspension of some basic copper salt, such as the carbonate, the hydroxide, azurite or some benign mixture, and then expose the
plastic sheet to a gas phase HCl for enough time to convert the basic copper to the chloride? Could certain copper salts be reduced to the metal by
hydrazine vapors? You could even print circuits on paper or acetate sheets.
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Theoretic
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Copper I salts are soluble and stable in acetonitrile and other pi acceptor ligands.
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chloric1
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Nanocuprous chloride
Cougras- I would love to find out more about these nanodots and whether or not Nanotechnology experiementation could be readily availabe to the
hobbyist. From the very limited reading I have done on the subject it sounds complicated and the technology expensive.
Theoretic- I think you are right about acetonitrile because the "Handbook of Inorganic synthesis" Recommended using acetonitrile solutions
of cuprous halides as electrolytes to make anhydrous halides of more reactive metals such as cadmium, zinc etc. I would like to see if the
acetonitrile solutions are less sensitive to oxidation than the complex aqueas based ones.
[Edited on 7/3/2004 by chloric1]
Fellow molecular manipulator
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Theoretic
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"Theoretic- I think you are right about acetonitrile because the "Handbook of Inorganic synthesis" Recommended using acetonitrile
solutions of cuprous halides as electrolytes to make anhydrous halides of more reactive metals such as cadmium, zinc etc."
Well I do trust "Chemistry of the elements"
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chemoleo
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Cougaris, I don't quite understand your problem.
You are speaking of CuCl (not CuCl2), which will react with atmospheric oxygen to form CuCl2 and other oxy-salts pretty much immediately.
What are you hoping to get from dotting CuCl onto acetates - they will react to form CuCl2 within minutes (unless you keep it in an N2 atmosphere, or
vacuum even).
As to complexants that dissolve CuCl - ammonia is good of course, but I believe you can also use others, such as hydroxylamine, methylamine,
ethylenediamine, and of course HCl (which I wouldnt even attempt). Maybe even some professional complexants, such as EDTA. This needs to be tested of
course.
Still, I really dont understand why anyone would like to dot CuCl:NH3 or HCl onto acetates ...
PS normally such cartridges are lined by plastics, not by metals - so maybe the HCl or NH3 won't be a problem to it... except the vapour pressure
of course....
[Edited on 4-7-2004 by chemoleo]
Never Stop to Begin, and Never Begin to Stop...
Tolerance is good. But not with the intolerant! (Wilhelm Busch)
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kryss
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Slightly off topic
If your putting these kind of solutions anywhere near a printer be aware that the most corrosive compound is the cupric ion - it'll corrode any
metal it comes into contact with other than copper! Spilt some years ago on a camera didnt last long!
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Cougaris
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As to why I wish to print CuCl, I should probably have mentioned by now that the project consists of dissolving a semiconductor material and its
subsequent printing onto a flexible substrate. In my case, the semiconductor material is a wide band gap material, CuCl. I will then carry out a
battery of characterisation tests on the deposited material (atomic force microscopy, XRD, etc). Essentially, I want to maintain the materials
properties (it can emit light in the Ultra Violet range) as best as I can, given the rather limited resources (and given my lack of experience with
chemistry - I am trying to rectify that ASAP though ). I cant go about printing
this stuff in any environment other then standard atmosphere - I do have access to an annealer, so I can vary the temperature after deposition.
I'd like to thank those that have responded so far - your discussion has been very useful. That acetonitrile looks promising - it might save the
print heads from a gruesome death that the HCL approach had in store for them.
chloric1 - Regular Inkjet printers, at the very least HP and Epson, tend to have print heads around 20 µm or so, from what I have gathered from
various sources. There exists quite a bit of research into using inkjet printers for deposition of various substances, so I can't see why a
hobbyist could mess around with such small scales. I have read a good many research papers that have done some novel things using this approach.
chemoleo - vapor pressure? Forgive my ignorance, but what are you refering to?
Edit - This might give you a hint of what this is all about : http://www.azom.com/news.asp?newsID=1272 [Xerox develops semiconductive ink]. Bear in mind though that I have to use CuCl. I have no choice in
that matter
[Edited on 8-7-2004 by Cougaris]
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