Assessment of mechanical traits and corrosion resistance in ZrC nanoceramic–strengthened Ni-W-P nanocomposite coatings

The electroless plating method was used in this work to successfully create a Ni-W-P/ZrC composite coating on an N80 carbon steel substrate. How the ceramic nanomaterial ZrC affected the coating’s mechanical property, surface morphology, and corrosion resistance has also been investigated in this work. The outcomes demonstrated that the addition of ZrC material can greatly enhance the performance of the coating in a severe environment. The coating’s surface flaws improve, its surface gets denser and more complete, and its grain size gets much more refined as the concentration of ZrC increases. This is particularly evident when the ZrC concentration is 4 g/L. Because of ZrC’s dispersion strengthening and grain refinement effects, the composite coating with 4 g/L of ZrC has an average friction coefficient of 0.524 in the friction test which is lower than the Ni-W-P alloy coating. It also has a narrower wear section and a significantly smaller wear volume (0.0011 mm³). Furthermore, ZrC significantly increases the composite coatings’ resistance to corrosion. The corrosion current density of the composite coating is 5.27 µA/cm², the corrosion potential is − 0.282 V, and the impedance is 8.21 × 10⁴ Ω⋅cm² when the concentration of ZrC is 4 g/L.