ORIGINAL PAPER Electrodeposition of tin and antimony in 1-ethyl- 3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ionic liquid Wenzhong Yang Æ Hui Cang Æ Yongming Tang Æ Jintang Wang Æ Yuanxiang Shi Received: 4 September 2007 / Revised: 10 December 2007 / Accepted: 10 December 2007 / Published online: 25 December 2007 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007 Abstract The electrodepositions of Sn(II) and Sb(III) were studied in the [EMIm]BF 4 ionic liquid at ambient temperature. Linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) results indicated that the reductions of Sn(II) and Sb(III) on Pt electrode are electrochemically irreversible. The diffusion coefficients of Sn(II) and Sb(III) in the ionic liquid elec- trolyte were determined in terms of the LSV data. Tin and antimony ions form simpler Sn(II) chlorocomplex species and higher Sb(III) chlorocomplexes, respectively present in the ionic liquid electrolyte. Energy dispersive X-ray spec- troscopy (EDX) analysis revealed that tin and antimony alloys can be electroplated in the ionic liquid electrolyte. Keywords Electrodeposition  Tin  Antimony  Ionic liquid  Tetrafluoroborate 1 Introduction Room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) are a family of liquids only consisting of free moving dissociated ions at or near room temperature. Considerable research efforts have been devoted in the past decade to room temperature ionic liquids due to their attractive properties, such as wide elec- trochemical window, good thermal and chemical stability, and high ionic conductivity. In particular, RTILs are finding a variety of applications in the field of applied electrochemistry, e.g., rechargeable batteries, capacitors, photoelectrochemical cells, fuel cells, electroplating, elect- rocatalysis, electrosynthesis, and nuclear waste treatment [1–4]. Many previous reports [5–11] on RTILs in studies of electrochemical and electrodeposition studies have focused on the chloroaluminate-based ionic liquids, which are unfortunately sensitive to moisture. In contrast, the number of reports on air-stable ionic liquids is relatively small. Tin, antimony, and tin–antimony alloys are popular materials in the semiconductor industry. They are used to produce numerous electronic devices in terms of electro- deposition and/or physical vapor deposition (PVD) techniques. There have been numerous investigations of the electrodeposition of tin and antimony from aqueous solutions or high-temperature molten salts reported in the literature [12–15]. However, there have been few studies on the electrochemistry of tin [5] and antimony [16, 17] in ionic liquids. Hussey and Xe [5] showed that the electro- deposition of Sn on platinum in AlCl 3 -EMIC is a quasi- reversible process, and the diffusion coefficients of Sn(II) in acidic melt and basic melt were (5.3 ± 0.7) 9 10 -7 and (5.1 ± 0.6) 9 10 -7 cm 2 s -1 , respectively. Osteryoung and Habboush [17] studied the electrochemistry of anti- mony(III) on glass carbon in AlCl 3 -BPC at 40 °C. It was revealed that the reduction of Sb(III) to Sb is irreversible while the oxidation of Sb(III) to Sb(V) demonstrates a quasi-reversible behavior. Yang and Sun [16] reported the electrodeposition of antimony(III) in [EMIm]BF 4 ionic liquid containing free chloride ions, finding the effect of temperature on the nucleation process and the morpholo- gies of the deposits. It is apparent that there are considerable limitations to the electrodeposition of tin and/or antimony on active materials like aluminum and lithium, as well as magne- sium, in aqueous solutions. On the other hand, the disadvantages of the moisture-sensitive chloroaluminate- based ionic liquid systems exposed to the atmosphere are also obvious in practical applications. Therefore, this W. Yang (&)  H. Cang  Y. Tang  J. Wang  Y. Shi College of Science, Nanjing University of Technology, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210009, People’s Republic of China e-mail: yangwz@njut.edu.cn 123 J Appl Electrochem (2008) 38:537–542 DOI 10.1007/s10800-007-9470-6