Electroplating process and composition
AssigneeShipley Company, L.L.C.
InventorsWade Sonnenberg, Patrick J. Houle, Thong B. Luong, James G. Shelnut, Gordon Fisher
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A process for electroplating a nonconducting substrate comprising formation of a film of a conductive polymer on the surface of a nonconducting substrate and electrolytic deposition of metal thereover. The conductive film is formed by deposition of the conductive polymer onto said surface from an aqueous suspension of said polymer containing a polymeric stabilizer having repeating alkylene oxide groups and a hydrophilic--lipophilic balance of at least 10.
Claims9
A method for electroplating the surface of a nonconductor comprising the steps of contacting the nonconductor with an aqueous suspension of a conductive polymer to deposit a conductive polymer layer over the surface of said nonconductor and metal plating the surface of the nonconductor by passing a current between electrodes immersed in an electrolyte containing dissolved plating metal where one of said electrodes comprises said nonconductor to be plated, said aqueous suspension of the conductive polymer containing a stabilizing concentration of a polymeric stabilizer having the structural formula:
- RO[(CH.sub.m CH.sub.2m O).sub.a (CH.sub.m' CH.sub.2m' O)].sub.b AR'M
- where R is a hydrocarbon group having from 1 to 40 carbon atoms, m and m'differ from each other and each is a whole integers of from 1 to 4, and a and b are whole integers varying between 0 and 1000 provided that a+b is at least 3, R' is an alkyl group having from 1 to 8 carbon atoms, A is an anion and M is a counteracting cation and a hydrophilic--lipophilic balance (HLB) in excess of 12.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.