Dense Al2O3 sealing inhibited high hydrostatic pressure corrosion of Cr/GLC coating

Abstract The corrosion failure of amorphous carbon (a-C) coatings is commonly ascribed to the existence of growth microdefects, which serve as pathways for corrosive fluids to permeate the substrate. Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is renowned for its ability to augment the corrosion resistance of metallic materials. Graphite-like carbon (GLC) is one of the amorphous carbon materials dominated by hybridized sp2-C bonds. In this study, an ALD-deposited Al2O3 layer is specially introduced on the Cr/GLC multilayer coating to solve the aforementioned corrosion risk of a-C by taking the sealing conception for defects. Compared to the as-deposited Cr/GLC coating, the coating encapsulated with Al2O3 layer depicts the reduction of corrosion current density over two orders of magnitude under a wide pressure range of 0.1 ~ 15 MPa. Particularly, the presence of released Crn+ and Fen+ in the corrosion solution is significantly diminished, accompanying with a small quantity of Aln+ generated in sealed coating during corrosion. Microstructural analysis and electrochemical results identified that both the dense Al2O3 layer offered strong safeguard for Cr elements released from multilayers, whilst amorphous carbon network inhibited the likelihood chloride penetration induced by partially infiltrated Al2O3, which made the synergistic contributions to the enhancement of corrosion resistance for Cr/GLC coating for deep-sea applications.