Effect of the metallic surface pre-treatment on the corrosion behaviour of sol-gel hybrid coated EN AW-6063 alloy

Abstract

In this work, the effect of alloy surface pre-treatments on the corrosion behaviour of sol–gel hybrid coated EN AW 6063 alloy was studied. Four pre-treatments were used: solvent degreasing; alkaline degreasing followed by acid etching; alkaline degreasing followed by alkaline plus acid etching and alkaline degreasing followed by acid etching and oxide growth in boiling water. SEM/EDS revealed that the alloy surface depends on the pre-treatment. The alkaline plus acid cleaned samples exhibited a very smooth deoxidized surface. All the others showed a rougher surface with an oxide layer which is more homogenous and denser in the samples subjected to the oxide growth step. The sol-gel hybrid coating was synthesized from glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane (GPTMS) and zirconium n-propoxide (TPOZ) precursors and applied to metallic substrate by dip-coating. The corrosion behaviour of the hybrid coated samples was evaluated by Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) and by an accelerated corrosion test. Complimentary to the corrosion study, the adhesion of the hybrid sol-gel coating was evaluated by crosscut and bend tests. The corrosion tests revealed that the pre-treatment that includes the oxide growth step leads to the best protection performance, followed by the alkaline degreasing and alkaline plus acid etching one. However, the latter exhibits the worst adhesive behaviour, attributed to the smoother, deoxidized surface of the substrate.