Date of Award

12-6-2017

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Environmental Sciences, Ph.D.

First Advisor

Bruce Johnson

Committee Members

Brandon Kemp; Gauri Guha; Robert Engelken; Ross Carroll

Call Number

LD 251 .A566d 2017 V36

Abstract

The goal of this dissertation project was to investigate the viability of N, N-dimethylformamide (DMF) as a solvent for CdTe electrodeposition. The Taguchi Method was used to design a minimal set of experiments to determine this. The factors chosen were deposition voltage, solution composition, stir rate, and temperature. There were a total of nine experiments and 18 samples produced (2 per experiment). Optical absorbance data was collected for each film to approximate the bandgap of the material. This data was used to determine the optimal set of conditions and the relative significance of each factor to one another. It was found that the deposition voltage was the most significant factor, followed closely by the solution composition and temperature. The stir rate was found to have very little effect on the results. While the results appeared quite promising, the viability of DMF for industrial applications is low. Precipitates formed within the solutions used after two days due most likely to atmospheric moisture entering the solvent and reacting with TeCl4 to form TeO2. Avoiding this issue would require measures that are not necessary with current methods that rely on aqueous baths.

Rights Management

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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