A Novel Approach to Study the Time-Varying Additive Activity during the Electrorefining of Copper
Authors: Collet Thomas , Wouters Benny , Hallemans Noël , Claessens Raf , Schmidt Philip , Ramharter Kristof , Lataire John , Eeltink Sebastiaan , Hubin Annick 
Published: September 2023

Electrodeposition additives are key components to enhance the electrochemical deposition of metals, either in pure plating applications or during the electrorefining of metals. Many different additives, either organic or inorganic, are applied in industry, depending on the type of process. This work focusses on thiourea and chloride as common additives used for copper electrorefining. This electrochemical industrial process consumes an impure copper anode and produces a pure (99.995 %) copper cathode, while the anode impurities remain in the electrolyte. Additives assist the electroreduction process to produce smooth copper deposits, essential to avoid short circuits and the formation of unwanted cathode morphologies which can entrap impurities.

Thiourea is a crucial but complex additive in copper refining. It is known to degenerate into formamidine disulfide (FDS) and both thiourea as FDS can undergo interactions with either copper ions in the solution or the cathode surface. Time dependent additive studies and fundamental knowledge of the effect of aged electrolyte on the cathodic part of the electrorefining process are scarce.

The approach applied in this work enables the investigation of the time dependent effect of additives, in this case thiourea and chlorides, assisting the electroplating of copper. Fundamental knowledge of the assisted plating process is extended to create a corner stone for applied research, subsequently, semi-industrial circumstances are used to describe the additive behaviour in industrial relevant conditions. Operando Odd Random Phase Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (ORP-EIS) is used to study the electrochemistry of the additive system [1,2]. Hereby, a multisine input signal is added to the DC current to perform the ORP-EIS experiment simultaneously with the plating process. This measurement technique allows an in situ monitoring of the electrochemical system for hour-long electrodeposition processes. The ORP-EIS technique enables a quantification of the nonlinearities and non-stationarities during the EIS experiment [3]. Additionally, the present non-stationarities are modelled and the nonlinearities are considered as nuisance factor to result in a best linear time-varying approximation [4,5]. An equivalent electrical circuit is used as model to extract the relevant physical parameters from the impedance data. The EIS study is complemented with an ex situ analysis of the thiourea concentration, through ion chromatography, as a function of plating time. Correlations could be made between electrochemical parameters and actual thiourea concentrations [2].

[1] T. Collet, et al., An operando ORP-EIS study of the copper reduction reaction supported by thiourea and chlorides as electrorefining additives, Electrochimica Acta (2021) 138762.

[2] T. Collet, et al., The time-varying effect of thiourea on the copper electroplating process with industrial copper concentrations, Electrochimica Acta (2022) 141412.

[3] Van Gheem, et al., Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy in the presence of non-linear distortions and non-stationary behaviour part i: Theory and validation, Electrochimica Acta 49 (2004) 4753–4762.

[4] N. Hallemans, et al., Detection, Classification, and Quantification of Nonlinear Distortions in Time-Varying Frequency Response Function Measurements, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, 70 (2021) 6500814.

[5] N. Hallemans, et al., Best Linear Time-Varying Approximation of a General Class of Nonlinear Time-Varying Systems, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, 70 (2021) 6503814.