The Study of Zink-Nickel Composite Coatings after Annealing

The Zinc composite coatings containing Ni powder were obtained by the electrodeposition and electroless methods. Electrodeposited Zn+Ni coatings were plated with the current density jk = 150 mA/cm2 from the zinc chloride bath containing the suspension of nickel powder. Electroless (Zn-Ni)+Ni coatings were obtained by chemical reduction of Ni2+ and Zn2+ ions from the sulphate bath containing sodium hypophosphite as a reducing agent and mechanically dispersed Ni powder suspension. The thickness of (Zn-Ni)+Ni layer was ~8 m. In order to enhance the Zn content the obtained coatings were covered with the electrolytic Zn layers of different thickness (5 m, 8 m and 14 m) – (Zn-Ni)+Ni/Zn. The thermal treatment of the obtained composites was carried out at a temperature of 320oC, during 2h in argon atmosphere. The electrodeposited coatings show the presence of Zn, Ni(Zn) and ZnO phases. The electroless coatings show the presence of Zn, Ni(Zn) and ZnO phases. The additional electrodeposition of Zn leads to the creation of dilayer coatings (Zn-Ni)+Ni/Zn. The annealing of such obtained coatings leads to the creation of Ni2Zn11 intermetalic phase. The average Ni(Zn) and Ni crystallite size before annealing is in a range of 200 A and after annealing the size is increasing to values of 600-800 A.