Manufacture and Properties of Ni-B-Fe 2 O 3 Composite Nano-coatings by Electrodeposition

Present study deals with electrodeposition of binary Ni-B and ternary Ni-B-Fe2O3 alloy coatings using DMAB as a source of boron. The coatings were characterized for elemental composition, phase composition and surface topography using FE-SEM, XRD and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). The phase stability of coatings was studied using differential scanning colorimetry (DSC). Subsequently, the mechanical and electrochemical corrosion studies were carried out using nano indentation and potentiodynamic polarization studies respectively. The results indicate that addition of Fe2O3 in Ni-B alloy coatings results in 52% improvement in hardness and 3 times improvement in corrosion protection efficiency over Ni-B coatings. Ni-B-Fe2O3 coatings can be suitable economical option towards conventional electroless Ni-B alloy.