Development of nano-structured cyclic multilayer Zn-Ni alloy coatings using triangular current pulses

Cyclic multilayer alloy (CMA) deposits of Zn-Ni were developed on mild steel from sulphate bath having thiamine hydrochloride (THC) and citric acid (CA) as additives. CMA coatings were developed galvanostatically using triangular current pulses, under different conditions of cyclic cathode current density (CCCD's) and number of layers. The corrosion behaviors of the coatings were evaluated by potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy methods, and were compared with that of monolayer Zn-Ni alloy of same thickness. At optimal configuration, CMA coating represented as, (Zn-Ni)(2.0/5.0/300) was found to exhibit similar to 40 times better corrosion resistance compared to monolayer alloy, (Zn-Ni)(3.0). Cyclic voltammetry study demonstrated that THC and CA have improved the appearance of the deposit by complexation with metal ions. The corrosion protection efficacy of CMA coatings was attributed to the difference in phase structure of the alloy in successive layers, evidenced by XRD analysis. The formation of multilayer and corrosion mechanism was analyzed by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) study.