Abstract: The influence of pH value of the electrolyte solution on the zinc electroplating process was studied by means of cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometry approaches. The results shown that, under this experimental conditions and at high overpotentials, the nucleation of zinc is instantaneous, and the nuclear densities N increase with the overpotentials. While at low potentials, no distinguished nucleation current can be observed. High pH promotes the deposition either by drifting the initial depositing potential positively, or by increasing the depositing current through the change of the total charge of the adsorption process Qads, i.e., theｖstructure of electrochemical double layer.

Key words: zinc electroplating, nucleation, growth