Fabrication of Superhydrophobic CuO Coating on Steel by Electrodeposition Modified with Stearic Acid

Abstract

Environmental deterioration of carbon steel-made parts is a serious problem. Failure due to environment conditions such as corrosion costs industries immense amount of money. Regarding this issue, this research provided an approach in discovering a facile and environmentally-friendly technique to protect steel-made components. A superhydrophobic CuO coating had been successfully fabricate on lowcarbon steel substrate. The superhydrophobic CuO coating was fabricated by Cu electrodeposition combined with immersion in a mixture of NaOH and H2O2 solution, as well as stearic acid modification. The superhydrophobic CuO coating was reported having maximum contact angle up to 171.4o with relatively low contact angle hysteresis and sliding angle of 15.1o and 7.5o respectively. Therefore, it was considered to be outstanding water-repellent coating. The superhydrophobicity was obtained by roughening and depositing stearic acid modifier on the surface. In addition, superhydrophobic CuO coating prepared in this experiment exhibited exceptional anti-corrosion property. The corrosion rate of the steel substrate could be significantly reduced. It was found that corrosion rate of superhydrophobic CuO coating to be eight times slower than that of bare steel.