An effective approach to fabricate the corrosion resistance of superhydrophobic ZnO/Ni composite coating on carbon steel substrate

Abstract

In this study, the carbon steel substrates were coated with nickel (Ni), zinc oxide (ZnO) and ZnO/Ni coatings by electrodeposition approach and modified with stearic acid (STA)-ethanol solution to obtain STA-Ni, STA-ZnO and STA-ZnO/Ni coatings, respectively. The surface morphologies, chemical compositions and surface roughnesses of the modified coatings were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM), respectively. The wettability tests shows that the water contact angle (WCA) of the modified coatings with micro/nanostructure are all greater than 150° and the sliding angle (SA) are all less than 10°, especially the STA-ZnO/Ni coating with a WCA of 164.3° and a SA of 2.3°, displaying the prominent superhydrophobicity. Interestingly, the three modified coatings all exhibited excellent mechanical stabilities and self-cleaning properties after being scratched by a knife blade, peeled off by adhesive tape, abrased by sandpaper, and contaminated by chalk dust. Moreover, the corrosion resistance tests confirms that the STA-ZnO/Ni superhydrophobic coating possess higher durability and anticorrosion performance than that of STA-ZnO and STA-Ni coatings. The superhydrophobic STA-ZnO/Ni composite coating prepared by two-step electrodeposition combined with low surface energy material modification designed in this work shows great potential and prospect in industrial application.

Keywords:

• Electrodeposition
• wettability
• micro/nanostructure
• superhydrophobicity
• anticorrosion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the financial supports of the National Natural Science Foundation of China [No. 51773173], the Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing [Nos. cstc2020jcyj-msxmX0826, cstc2021jcyj-msxmX1139], the Science and Technology Research Program of Chongqing Municipal Education Commission [Nos. KJQN201901223, KJQN201901228, KJQN202001234], the Opening Project of Material Corrosion and Protection Key Laboratory of Sichuan province [No. 2021CL15] and the Research Project on Higher Education Teaching Reform of Chongqing Three Gorges University [No. JGYB2108]. The first author (Shan Wang) and the corresponding author (Chuanbo Hu) contributed equally to this work.