NICKEL-BASED MULTIWALLED CARBON NANOTUBE COMPOSITE COATINGS

Abstract

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been widely known as nanomaterials with excellent mechanical properties. Previous studies reported that the tensile strength of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) was up to 63 GPa and single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) could reach 150 GPa while the highest tensile strength of the steel was found to be about 1.8 GPa. SWCNTs could have Young’s modulus up to 1000 GPa that was much greater than the value of 209 GPa of steel. Therefore, there is a great potential to utilize CNTs as reinforced materials for composites in general and Ni electrodeposition coating in particular to improve hardness, durability, corrosion, and other physical and mechanical properties. This paper presents results of preparing and examining characteristics of the Nickel electrodeposition coatings containing MWCNTs (Ni-MWCNTs). The Ni-MWCNTs composite coatings deposited on a steel plate with the area of 0.4 dm2 using bipolar pulses at 470 Hz and 50oC in a 5-liter bath. Amount of CNTs varying from 1 g/l to 3 g/l was dispersed into the solution by using surfactants and ultrasonic vibration. CNTs used in the study was MWCNTs diameters in the range from 20 to 90 nanometers and few micrometers in length. The SEM, EDS, hardness and adhesion tests were conducted to analyze the properties of the electrodeposition coatings. The obtained results indicated that the hardness and adhesion of the Ni-CNTs coating were 1.5 and 1.46 times, respectively, higher than those of the Ni coating. In addition, adhesion of the Ni-CNTs coating was significantly improved.