In my research we have a method of making polymer open-cell foams with high tortuosity and pore sizes on the order of 50-200 nanometers. I can make thicknesses of 100 micron to 2 mm thick (and up to 5 inch diameter disk). I am looking for some cool things to do with this material, and one idea was to try to fill it with metal and then dissolve the polymer away to leave a nanoporous metal structure.

The problem is that so far I cannot get water to penetrate inside the pores, I tried up to 4MPa pressure and it just won't go through (small pores and hydrophobic) but acetone will get absorbed in very quickly. My question is, could there be a way to use acetone as an electrolyte and deposit metals (copper, nickel, whatever) to fill these open-cell pores?

I haven't taken chemistry since intro chem back in undergrad so I really don't know much of anything about electroplating, so I will be very grateful for any help on this experiment. Thank you very much, I hope I was clear in explaining what I am trying to do.

In my research we have a method of making polymer open-cell foams with high tortuosity and pore sizes on the order of 50–200 nanometers. I can make thicknesses of 100 µm to 2 mm thick (and up to 5 inch diameter disk). I am looking for some cool things to do with this material, and one idea was to try to fill it with metal and then dissolve the polymer away to leave a nanoporous metal structure.

The problem is that so far I cannot get water to penetrate inside the pores, I tried up to 4 MPa pressure and it just won’t go through (small pores and hydrophobic) but acetone will get absorbed in very quickly. My question is, could there be a way to use acetone as an electrolyte and deposit metals (copper, nickel, whatever) to fill these open-cell pores?

I haven’t taken chemistry since intro chem back in undergrad so I really don’t know much of anything about electroplating, so I will be very grateful for any help on this experiment. Thank you very much, I hope I was clear in explaining what I am trying to do.