Electroless deposited Ni-P alloys: corrosion resistance mechanism

Electroless Ni-P alloys are produced as coatings on a broad variety of substrates. They exhibit a corrosion resistance that is superior to pure nickel but do not form a NiO oxide film (passive film) as pure nickel does. Despite the fact that many mechanisms have been proposed to explain this superior corrosion behaviour, no consensus has yet been reached. In this work electrochemical and XPS surface analytical methods have been combined in order to gain a deeper insight into the mechanisms underlying the corrosion resistance of electroless deposited Ni-P alloys with phosphorus content between 18 and 22 at.%. The anodic polarization curves in acidic and neutral solutions confirm a broad current plateau followed by a region with increasing current density. During potentiostatic polarization in the plateau region the current decays according to a power law with exponent ca. -0.5 indicating diffusion-limited dissolution of nickel. XPS/XAES measurements performed after potentiostatic polarization show that phosphorus is present in three different chemical environments. Based on the Auger parameter concept and on the chemical state plot, the three phosphorus states were assigned to phosphorus in the bulk alloy, phosphates and an intermediate phosphorus compound attributed to elemental phosphorus. Angle-resolved XPS analysis has shown that the elemental phosphorus is enriched at the interface between the alloy and the outermost surface in contact with the corrosive solution. These results suggest the following conclusions: the high corrosion resistance of electroless deposited Ni-P alloys can be explained by a strong enrichment of elemental phosphorus at the interface which limits the dissolution of nickel via a diffusion mechanism. A complementary explanation-not yet advanced-for the high corrosion resistance may lie in the electronic state of nickel in the Ni-P alloys.