Electrochemistry at the liquid plasma interface

Electrochemical Deposition of Metallic Nanoparticles, Nanosheets, Nanowires, and Mirrors at the Interface between Low-Temperature Plasmas and Ionic Liquids or Electrolytes Based on Molecular Solvents. The electrochemical deposition of a metal on the surface of another metal, which serves as cathode, is a well established industrial process to create corrosion-resistive or decorative platings. This book is about the electrochemical reduction of metal salts dissolved in ionic liquids or ordinary molecular solvents with free electrons from low-temperature plasmas at the electrolyte plasma interface. It is shown that the use of low- temperature plasmas as gaseous cathodes has the potential to become a conceptually new approach to designed materials like nanoparticles, nanowires, nanosheets, and liquid mirrors. In this treatise, special attention is paid to the ionic liquid plasma interface. A simple molecular model of the ionic liquids employed in the experiments has been derived as a first step in the attempt to understand the metal deposition processes and the electrochemical nature of the interface itself. Beside the plasma ignition and maintenance, possible mechanisms of metal phase formation and growth are considered as well as many other details.