Electrical conductive Cu/glass fibre composites prepared by electroless plating

A simple and efficient method has been developed to create an electrical conductive copper shell on glass fibres. Instead of regular formaldehyde, the preferable reducing capacity of hydrazine hydrate served as the reducing agent for copper plating. On this basic condition, the effect of the bath temperature, the Na₃C₆H₅O₇·2H₂O and the NH₃·H₂O concentrations on the morphology and the conductivity of the Cu/glass fibre were explored. The morphology and the microstructure of the Cu/glass fibre particles were characterised by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffractometer techniques and the electrical conductivity was detected with the four-point probe method. The results showed that a compact and uniform copper layer was successfully deposited on the activated glass fibre, and the as-synthesised Cu/glass fibre composites exhibited a face centred cubic crystal structure and presented excellent electrical conductivity where the volume resistivity was 8.62 × 10^-4 Ω cm.