Fabrication of Electrically Conductive Patterns on ABS Polymer Using Low-Pressure Cold Spray and Electroless Plating

Abstract Previous studies have shown that metallic coatings can be successfully cold sprayed onto several polymer substrates. The electrical performance of the cold-sprayed polymers, however, is not generally sufficient enough to utilize them as an electronic device. In this paper, an environment-friendly metallization technique has been proposed to fabricate conductive metal patterns onto polymer substrates combining cold spray deposition and electroless plating to address that challenge. Copper feedstock powder was cold sprayed onto the surface of the acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) parts. The as-cold sprayed powders then served as the activating agent for selective electroless copper plating (ECP) to modify the surface of the polymers to be electrically conductive. A series of characterizations are conducted to investigate the morphology, analyze the surface chemistry, and evaluate the electrical performance and adhesion performance of the fabricated coatings. After 6 hours of ECP, the sheet resistance and resistivity of copper patterns on the ABS parts were measured as 2.854 mΩ/sq and 6.699 × 10−7 Ωm respectively. Moreover, simple electrical circuits were demonstrated for the metallized ABS parts through the described method. The results show that low-pressure cold spray (LPCS) and ECP processes could be combined to fabricate electrically conductive patterns on ABS polymer surfaces in an environmental-friendly way.