Preparation and characterization of

electroless Ni-X-P (X: Sn, W, Cu)

with chromium-free pre-treatments
a

S. Karthikeyan, a B.Ramamoorthy
b
J. Sudagar c R. Rajendran

ramoo@iitm.ac.in

Manufacturing Engineering Section, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Madras,

Chennai - 600036.
b
Department of Metallurgical and Materials, IIT Madras, Chennai - 600036.
c
School of Mechanical and Building Sciences, B. S. Abdur Rahman University, Chennai - 600048
a

IMPORTANCE
Magnesium alloy is a light metallic material

Application in automotive, telecommunications and

aerospace industries
Favorable properties
low density
good shock absorbing
impact resistance
electromagnetic shielding
thermal conductivity
Unfavorable properties
poor corrosion resistance
poor wear resistance

INTRODUCTION
One of the way to increase the corrosion and wear
resistance of magnesium alloy is by surface coating
Electroless nickel plating is a hard uniform coating
provides good corrosion and wear resistance
Difficult to coat Magnesium because
Magnesium alloy consists of two phases, solid
solution and intermetallic compounds (Mg17Al12)
-phase form a microcell which induces
electrochemical corrosion.
Magnesium makes it easy to produce the oxide
film in the air.

INTRODUCTION
Hence pretreatment is required to coat Magnesium
alloy
Chrome free pretreatment was done by phosphate
manganese, vanadium and tannic acid
Phosphate manganese based pretreatment has high
corrosion resistance.
Ternary alloy coating is achieved by W, Sn and Cu
along with Electroless Nickel Phosporous coating.

Flow chart of electroless nickel

plating
Alkaline cleaning
45g/L-NaOH,
10g/L-Na3PO412H2O

20min, 70C

Phosphate-manganese
0.5 g/L Mn(H2PO4)2
15 mL/L H 3PO4
20 mL/L C2H4O2
50 mL/L CH3CH2OH
5 mL/L HNO3
2.5g/L Na2MoO4,
3 min, RT
Electroless nickel
Plating

Technical flow chart of electroless nickel

plating with chrome free Pre treatment on the
AZ91D magnesium alloy

XRD patterns: (a) AZ91D magnesium alloy substrate,

(b) after phosphate manganese
pretreatment

Composition and operating conditions of the plating

Constituents of

NiP

Ni-Sn-P

Ni-W-P

Ni-Cu-P

plating bath
NiSO46H2O

15 g/L

15 g/L

15 g/L

15 g/L

NaH2PO2H2O

20 g/L

20 g/L

20 g/L

20 g/L

Na3C6H5O72H2O

40 g/L

80 g/L

40 g/L

40 g/L

8 g/L

15 g/L

8 g/L

8 g/L

4 g/L

20 g/L

10 g/L

Na2WO4

40 g/L

NH4CH3COO

1.25 g/L

CuSO45H2O

1 ppm/L

1 ppm/L

1 ppm/L

1 ppm/L

NH4HF2
Na2SnO33H2O
Na2CO3

Thiourea
Operating conditions---PH 9.0; temperature: 872 ; time, 4 h

Surface Morphology of coating

(a) Ni-P
Ni-Cu-P

(b) Ni-Sn-P

(c) Ni-W-P

(d)

Composition of coating by
EDS
Compositio Ni (wt%)
n

P (wt%)

96.23

Ni-Sn-P

91.66

6.33

2.01

Ni-W-P

83.99

11.16

4.85

86.00

7.15

W (wt%)

Ni-P

Ni-Cu-P

3.77

Sn (wt
%)

Cu (wt
%)

6.85

Corrosion characteristics of coating

in 3.5% NaCl

Alloy in Ecorr
3.5%
(mV)
NaCl

Icorr

(A/cm

Ni-P

-782

)
7.979

Ni-Sn-P

-587

0.201

Ni-Cu-P

-660

0.326

Ni-W-P

-882

0.682

Heat treatment and Wear test

Heat treatment for 1 hout at 300 C.
Wear loss is measured using pin-on-disc
Track length of 1000 m at a velocity 1m/s.
Disc material EN31 with hardness 62 HRC.
Normal Load 10 N and 20 N
Wear loss is less in ternary coating compared
to Ni-P coating

Wear loss before and after Heat

Treeatment

Conclusions
Electroless Ni-P ternary alloy with sodium stannate,
sodium tungstate and copper sulphate with chrome
free pretreatment from an alkaline-sodium sulphate
bath has been prepared.
Ternary

coating

resulted

in

improved

corrosion

resistance.
Post coating heat treatment resulted in enhanced wear
resistance of AZ91D magnesium alloy for the Ni-P, NiSn-P, Ni-Cu-P and Ni-W-P coating.