Characterization of electrodeposited Co + Ni alloys by application of the ALSV technique Professor Aleksandar Despic to commemorate his 70th birthday

Anomalous codeposition of Co and Ni onto a gold RDE was investigated in a solution containing simple sulfate salts with the addition of sodium citrate. It was shown that the dependence of the percentage of Co in the deposit on the percentage of Co in the bath follows the shape found in the literature, with the percentage of Co in the deposit being slightly higher than in electrolytes containing pure simple salts. Alloy layers of different composition, electrodeposited at constant charge Q_dep = 1 C cm⁻² (thickness 0.34 μm) were submitted to anodic dissolution at a sweep rate of 1 mV s⁻¹ (ALSV technique) in a solution of 1 M NaCl, pH 2. All samples were found to dissolve through a single anodic peak, indicating that both constituents of the alloy dissolve simultaneously. Alloys with higher Ni content (above 40at.%) were found to dissolve at potentials more positive than the potential of pure Ni dissolution as a consequence of the Gibbs energy change of formation of electrodeposited solid solution type Co + Ni alloys. The composition of electrodeposited alloys was determined by the atomic absorption technique. An attempt was made to obtain a correlation between the peak potentials of anodic dissolution of alloy samples and the composition of alloys, to determine the composition of the alloy from the peak potential of its dissolution. It is found that such a correlation can be used only for strictly defined conditions of alloy deposition and dissolution, caused by the contribution of the Gibbs energy change of formation of electrodeposited alloys. Also, the presence of a CoNi₃ ordered structure in the system is not detected as a separate ALSV peak, but its existence could be the cause of the shape of the Gibbs energy change with composition of the alloy for alloys electrodeposited at low current density.