The colorful and mechanically robust
surfaces of metallic materials
are important for their applications in electronics, automobile, aerospace,
and so on, but it is challenging to prepare them at a reasonable cost.
Herein, we propose a simple, environment-friendly, and cost-effective
method, reagent-free hydrothermal treatment, to prepare colorful surfaces
of magnesium alloys with mechanical robustness. The as-treated surface
mainly composes of magnesium (hydr)oxides with a biomimetic microstructure,
whose thickness and roughness increase linearly with the hydrothermal
time. By adjusting the hydrothermal time, a series of surface colors
of magnesium alloys are obtained because of light interference. The
as-treated surface with film thickness more than 1.1 μm exhibits
high Vickers hardness (∼500 HV), low friction coefficient (∼0.26),
and low wear rate (1.06 × 10–5 mm3·N–1·m–1), which is
superior to most magnesium alloys after surface treatments. The microstructure
of the as-treated surface can be retained after harsh tribological
tests, demonstrating attractive mechanical robustness. Furthermore,
the method proposed here was extended to the surface treatments of
other series of magnesium alloys, which verifies the great potential
of this method for large-scale industrial application of colorful
metallic materials with mechanical robustness.