A Comparative Study of Corrosion Resistance for HVAF-Sprayed Fe- and Co-Based Coatings

There is an increasing demand to replace Co-based coatings with cheap and environmentally friendly Fe-based coatings in corrosive environments. The main objective of this work was to evaluate whether Fe-based coatings could present a better corrosion performance than Co-based coatings. Therefore, two types of Fe-based and one type of Co-based coatings with chemical compositions (in wt %) of Fe-28Cr-16Ni-1.85C (FeNiCrC), Fe-17Cr-12Ni (FeNiCr), and Co-28Cr-1C (CoCrC) were produced by High Velocity Air Fuel (HVAF) spraying. The corrosion behavior of the coatings was studied comparatively by electrochemical tests in 3.5 wt % NaCl solution at 25 °C. The polarization test results showed that the FeCrNiC coating protected the underlying substrate better than the CoCrC coating, while the FeCrNi coating failed to hinder the penetration of corrosive ions. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements revealed that the solution penetrated into the coating through defects, however the corrosion process slowed down due to clogging of the interconnected defects by corrosion products. Increasing the in-flight average particle temperature from 1400 °C to 1500 °C led to a denser coating with fewer defects which seemed to improve the corrosion resistance of the FeCrNiC coating. The high-alloyed Fe-based coatings had the best corrosion protection performance and can thus be recommended as a potential alternative to Co-based coatings.