Preparation of Ni-Nd₂O₃ Nanocomposite Coatings by Electrodeposition under Dual-Frequency Ultrasound

Abstract

The Ni-Nd2O3 nanocomposite coatings were prepared by electrodeposition under dual-frequency ultrasound(DU). The Nd2O3 content and surface morphology of Ni-Nd2O3 nanocomposite coatings were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results showed that the Nd2O3 content of the nanocomposite coating prepared by electrodeposition using DU was high at 3.48% and the surface morphologies of DU nanocomposite coating showed better smooth surface, finer grain and more compact microstructure. A kind of method to prepare high quality Ni-Nd2O3 nanocomposite coating was obtained, which was: 40 g/L Nd2O3 nanoparticles, 45°C the temperature of electrolyte, 4A/dm2 cathode current density, 240W the power of bath-type ultrasound(BU), 100kHz the frequency of BU, 30W the power of probe-type ultrasound(PU), 20kHz the frequency of PU, and 1000r/min the stirring speed.

Ultrasound-assisted electrodeposition of composite coatings with particles

“…This improvement, observed in both Ni and Ni/SiC deposits electrodeposited in an ultrasonic field, was attributed to the lower porosity and higher compactness of the deposits produced under such conditions, and is in agreement with the idea that grain refinement by ultrasound results in lower porosity of electroplated coatings [22]. The enhancement of the corrosion resistance of composites coatings electrodeposited when ultrasound is implemented in the electrodeposition stage has also been reported for other composite coatings [41,42,46,64], where again a strong link between grain refinement, particle incorporation and corrosion behaviour was observed.…”

“…The use of ultrasound during the electrodeposition process also promotes the incorporation of well disperse, uniformly distributed particles into the electroplated coatings [38,[41][42][43]46,47,49,57,58,64]. A more uniform distribution of particles in the deposits was also observed by Dietrich et al [53] when incorporating Al2O3 particles in electrodeposited Ni-Co coatings under ultrasound.…”

“…Ultrasound has also been successful in increasing the amount of particles incorporated into electrodeposited coatings [37,38,41,42,49,53,67]. Zanella et al [48] observed that, although ultrasound did not have a significant effect on particle content in Ni/SiC composites produced by continuous-current plating, it significantly increased particle incorporation into the coatings deposited by pulsed-plating methods.…”

“…The morphology and structure of electrodeposited composite coatings is not only affected by the incorporation of particles into the coatings but also by the presence of ultrasound during the electrodeposition process. Many works have reported a beneficial effect of ultrasound in refining the grain size of the composite coatings [38,41,42,[44][45][46]49,53,54] achieving a smoother finish partly due to a much more uniform distribution of well-dispersed particles. For example, Cai et al [47] found that a combination of mechanical agitation and sonication produced Ni/SiC composite coatings with a finer surface morphology (Figure 5) as the mechanical agitation avoided the sedimentation of the SiC particles while the ultrasound prevented their agglomeration.…”

Electrodeposition Kinetics of Ni/Nano-Y2O3 Composite Coatings

“…Nickel coatings have been widely applied in various industrial and engineering fields due to their superiority in terms of mechanical properties which also makes it feasible to be used as a composite matrix. Indeed, various Ni-based composite coatings have been fabricated by electrodeposition, such as Ni-Al 2 O 3 [10], Ni-SiC [11], Ni-CeO 2 [12], Ni-TiO 2 [13], Ni-Nd 2 O 3 [14], Ni-TiN [15], Ni-WC [16] and Ni-WS 2 [17]. However, thus far, only a few researchers have investigated the composite coating of a nickel matrix enhanced with nano-Y 2 O 3 particles, and a few papers on the electrodeposition mechanism of the Ni-Y 2 O 3 composite have been reported by using electrochemical measurements methods [18,19].…”