Investigation of wear behavior of Ni–P/Ni–B–CeO2 composite coating

This work aimed to evaluate the effects of ceria nanoparticles and heat treatment on the coatings' phase characteristics and tribological behavior of Ni–P/Ni–B–CeO 2 coating in an alkaline electroless bath. The review of the conducted research indicated that using NaBH 4 reducing agent in a Ni–P/Ni–B–CeO 2 duplex coating has yet to be examined and due to the highly corrosive alkaline bath, the Ni–P layer was used. The Ni–P, Ni–P/Ni–B, and Ni–P/Ni–B–CeO 2 coatings were deposited using the electroless method. For characterizing the coatings, a field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) equipped with an energy-dispersive spectrometer (EDS), x-ray diffractometer (XRD), pull-off, hardness, and wear tests were utilized. The results indicated that ceria nanoparticles would enhance the hardness of the coating by 47 % compared to the Ni–P/Ni–B coating following heat treatment. The hardness value increased to 1450HV 0.1 after heat treatment. The Ni–P/Ni–B and Ni–P/Ni–B–CeO 2 coatings following heat treatment had the lowest friction coefficients of 0.2 and 0.4, respectively. Applying Ni–P/Ni–B–CeO 2 coating improved the weight loss by 12 compared to the substrate. • Ni-P/Ni-B-CeO 2 coating on aluminum alloy enhances hardness by 47% after heat treatment and wear resistance by 12x.