Nickel-aluminum bilayers and multilayers are commonly used in reactive systems because of their high heat of mixing. Traditionally, the layers are sputter deposited, an expensive and time-consuming process. In this article, a chemical reduction technique, electroless nickel-phosphorous (EN) deposition, is used for formation of the Ni-Al bilayer using a pure Al substrate. Traditionally, EN deposition on Al requires surface activation due to the native oxide layer. Here, we tune the bath pH to dissolve this oxide layer, such that deposition can be obtained without surface activation. Deposition kinetics is measured by tracking the mass change with time and temperature, and we extracted the activation energies at two different pH values. At pH 7, the energy is 98.7 kJ/mol and reduces to 55 kJ/mol at a pH of 8. The process can also be extended to aluminum powders and flakes in order to form reactive core–shell structures.

镍铝双层和多层由于其混合热量高而常用于反应体系。传统上，这些层是溅射沉积的，这是昂贵且费时的过程。在本文中，化学还原技术（化学镀镍磷（EN）沉积）用于使用纯Al衬底形成Ni-Al双层。传统上，由于天然氧化物层，在Al上进行EN沉积需要表面活化。在这里，我们调整镀液的pH值以溶解该氧化层，从而无需表面活化即可获得沉积。通过追踪质量随时间和温度的变化来测量沉积动力学，我们提取了两个不同pH值下的活化能。在pH值为7时，能量为98.7 kJ / mol，在pH为8时，能量降低至55 kJ / mol。