Additive manufacturing of Cu/Ni by selective electrochemical deposition on local conductive substrate

Electrodeposition is a novel and benign fabrication method which excellently combines electrochemical deposition mechanism and additive manufacturing to realize the processing of metal-based structures layer-upon-layer. Herein, an unusual additive manufacturing (AM) method is proposed based on electrochemical deposition. Notably, three-dimensional forming of metal by local conductive samples (PLA-CNTs7wt%) as cathode through selective electrochemical deposition was realized. Moreover, the effect of the deposition time on the surface morphology and quality of the sample were explored. Besides, the method of preparing metal parts in array type solves the problem of slow electrochemical additive manufacturing (ECAM) and provides a new approach to achieve mass production for industry. Then, the prepared copper-nickel multilayer metal samples realized the ECAM of multi-metals. Finally, the 4D printing effect of copper-nickel bimetallic samples was preliminarily explored, and the feasibility of preparing energy storage elements by selective electrochemical deposition was further proved.