Electrodeposition of Ce-Zr myristate superhydrophobic coating on copper substrate

Copper and its alloys due to favorable properties such as ductility, high electrical and thermal conductivity are very important in various industries. The coating of rare earth elements and intermediate elements is a suitable method to form a super-hydrophobic coating on copper substrate. The aim of this research is to fabricate a controlled super-hydrophobic coating of cerium-zirconium myristate on the copper base using the electrochemical deposition process and to prevent the corrosive solution penetration and reaching to the copper substrate due to removing the corrosive solution from the surface of the coating. The variables parameters in this process are the change of deposition time, the different concentrations of cerium chloride, and zirconium chloride salts and is necessary to investigate their effect of them on the structural morphology, wettability and corrosion properties. According to the results of Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FE-SEM), the surface morphology of the coatings is consisted of lotus-like nano and micro leaves. Furthermore, the wettability of the prepared coatings was analyzed and observed by measuring the contact angle of the coating with water droplet that the fabricated coating from the electrolyte containing 0.056 M of cerium chloride, 0.014 M of zirconium chloride, 0.1 M of myristic acid, 10 ml of hydrochloric acid and ethanol solvent has super-hydrophobic properties and the contact angle with water droplet is measured at 161°. The FT-IR and EDS analysis showed that the chemical composition of lotus-like leaves is cerium myristate and zirconium myristate. As a result, it can be inferred that the type of morphology and surface roughness play an important role in inducing the super-hydrophobic properties and has the most effect on the corrosion resistance of the coating due to the formation air pockets and then to prevents the corrosive solution penetration through the cross section of the coating and reaches to the copper substrate.