Electrochemical deposition of nanocrystalline aluminum from a protic ionic liquid on mild steel

Abstract Electrochemically stable new protic ionic liquid (PIL), 1-methylpiperidinium trifluoromethane sulphonate, [HmPip][OTf] was synthesized by mono-step synthetic protocol and synthesized PIL was employed for the electrodeposition of aluminum in ambient conditions. The study reports electrodeposition of aluminum on mild steel in PIL. The cyclic voltammogram of 3.0 M AlCl3 in [HmPip][OTf] is recorded on a mild steel electrode (working electrode) with aluminum as counter as well as reference electrode at 363 K and 0.05 V/s. Potentiostatic electrolysis of AlCl3 in PIL resulted in shiny, bright aluminum deposits which subjected to ex-situ analysis techniques such as FEG-SEM, EDX, and XRD. These findings open up the path for numerous PIL to solve the remaining technological goal in the field of aluminum electrodeposition.