Electroless plating of copper on different shaped ABS parts: A comparison

A B S T R A C T Metallization of ABS part has been studied on four different geometries namely cuboidal, cylindrical, pyramid and cone. These parts are fabricated on a FDM (fused deposition modelling) machine through layer by layer deposition process using ABS (acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) as parent material. Copper is deposited by electroless deposition method on all these fabricated parts using aluminium charcoal paste. The deposition process is also validated using four different acidic baths. The acidic baths used are 5% CuSO4 with 15% of individual Hydrofluoric acid (HF), Sulphuric acid (H2SO4), Phosphoric acid (H3PO4) and Acetic acid (CH3COOH). Copper deposition under different acidic baths for different deposition time is presented with their electrical performance measurement. The results show that cuboidal sample demonstrated better electrical performance in all acidic baths in comparison to other geometries involved. The results also propose that hydrofluoric acid gives best performance for all the geometries when compared with other acidic bath adopted.