Improving the corrosion resistance of AZ31 magnesium alloy by preparing hydroxyapatite with a superhydrophobized surface

Abstract

Magnesium and its alloys are promising materials that have potential mainly in the field of transport (e.g. automobile industry) and medicine (e.g. orthopedic implants). Their disadvantage is poor corrosion resistance, which limits their wider use in practice. Therefore, surface treatment by various methods is performed in order to improve corrosion protection. The preparation of a superhydrophobic coating is an interesting approach because the hydrophobic coating minimizes contact of the corrosion medium with the magnesium substrate. In this work, the hydrothermally prepared hydroxyapatite coating on AZ31 magnesium alloy was superhydrophobized by myristic acid. The prepared coatings were characterized by determining contact angle and surface analysis using a scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectroscopy and Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy. The corrosion resistance of modified surfaces was examined by potenciodynamic polarization in 3.5 % NaCl.