Interfacial electrodeposition of silver

A systematic study of silver ion electrodeposition at the water/air and water/dichloromethane interfaces, under potentiostatic control, is presented. We study the morphology of the deposits and their growth rate, as a function of several important physical and chemical parameters, namely, the electric voltage, the silver ion concentration, the conductivity, the viscosity, and the presence of a surfactant and an organic anionic additive known to associate with silver. The results are discussed in terms of a generalized Wagner number, which is shown to correlate well with the observations and to be a highly reliable predictive tool for the morphologies.