Study of Fe/Ni alloy coated carbon fibres prepared by electroplating

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this present work, magnetic iron–nickel (Fe/Ni) alloy coatings were successfully prepared on the surface of carbon fibres (Fe/Ni–CFs) through electrodeposition, and their microstructure, phase composition and properties were also investigated. Microstructure observations indicate that Fe/Ni alloy coatings on CFs are well-distributed and smooth. The composition of Fe/Ni alloy is FeNi3 with face-centred cubic structure. The conductivity of Fe/Ni–CFs increases dramatically with the extension of plating time and the line resistance value remains stable when the plating time reaches 15\u2005min. Meanwhile, Fe/Ni–CFs prepared shows typical soft magnetic performance (25.5\u2005emu\u2005g−1 of saturation magnetisation) and good thermal stability. Besides, composites of Fe/Ni–CFs and epoxy resin fabricated through hot-compression moulding process exhibited good homogeneity.