Direct growth of ZnO nanostructures on the Zn electroplated mild steel to create the surface roughness and improve the corrosion protection of the electroless Ni-P coating

Publication date: May 2018Source: Materials Science and Engineering: B, Volume 231Author(s): Zahra Sharifalhoseini, Mohammad H. Entezari, Mohsen ShahidiAbstractThe disadvantages of some methods applied to deposit or grow ZnO structures led us to conduct experiments on the direct growth of the ZnO through the new and highly applicable procedure. For this purpose, the mild steel surface after the activation was coated with a thin layer of Zn using the electroplating method. This technique eliminated the need of the pure Zn foil as a relatively expensive substrate. The conventional and sonochemical hot water treatment of as-synthesized Zn crystals for the conversion to the ZnO phases offered economic benefits because there was no need for the special pretreatment of the surface before thermal oxidation. As a practical application, as-grown ZnO structures (as the sublayer) were covered with the electroless Ni-P layer and the improvement in corrosion protection of binary Ni-P coatings with and without sublayer of ZnO was studied by the electrochemical method.Graphical abstractThe schematic representation of the Zn electrodeposition, the hot water treatment of the resulting surface via the classical and sonochemical routs, and access of the various ZnO morphologies to study the corrosion resistance of the electroless Ni-P coatings.
Source: Materials Science and Engineering: B - Category: Materials Science Source Type: research