Innovative hybrid functional coatings for aluminum and titanium substrates

While light metals such as aluminum and titanium alloys are essential to many industries and applications, the coatings required to provide useful functional properties  especially corrosion resistance can be costly in terms of energy, raw materials, or health and safety; and challenging to apply consistently and with satisfactory adhesion. coating technology for light metals low cost alternative that electrodeposits an engineered thin-film coating that bonds tightly to the substrate and provides excellent corrosion and wear resistance along with superior electrical and thermal performance.  As a new process, the Hybrid™ technology offers a stable, low-cost option to manufacturers and applicators seeking to improve and extend their use of light metal substrates.  This paper updates the art on this innovation and shares a widening scope of application for this novel coating technology.

Recent decades have significantly advanced anodization research and technology leading to an increase in knowledge on the underlying process.  It is now possible customize the bath chemistry and operating parameters to exert fine control over the anodizing nano-arrays in terms of pore size, wall thickness and the like.  This control has led to the development of the Hybrid^TM technology discussed here.  Essentially the method is a hybrid of anodizing and electrodeposition.The nanotube array provides a highly effective template for deposition of a tightly coupled electro- or electroless interlock metal layer.  Proprietary control of the deposition parameters allows the initial metal layer, nickel, to completely fill the individual nanotubes  and reconnect with the substrate. 

This forms the basis for subsequent deposition of nickel or other metal over the surface.  This functional upper layer can be any material, plated or coated directly onto the protected light metal substrate.  Figure 4 shows a typical result, with a thin 1.9 μm anodized layer under a 11.5 μm final coating view inverted.While light metals such as aluminum and titanium alloys are essential to many industries and applications, the coatings required to provide useful functional properties especially corrosion resistance can be costly in terms of energy, raw materials, or health and safety; and challenging to apply consistently and with satisfactory adhesion.  This article describes a new light metals coating technology,  coating that offers a low-cost alternative that electrodeposits an engineered thin-film coating which bonds tightly to the substrate and provides excellent corrosion and wear resistance along with superior electrical and thermal performance.

In 1913, Harry Brearley of Sheffield, UK discovered ‘rustless’ steel. Although there had been many prior attempts, Brearley has been credited with inventing the first true stainless steel, which had a 12.8% chromium content. He had added chromium to molten iron to produce a metal that did not rust. Chromium is a key ingredient, as it provides the resistance to corrosion. After this discovery, Sheffield itself became synonymous with steel and metallurgy.Brearley stumbled upon this discovery whilt trying to solve the problem of erosion of the internal surfaces of gun barrels for the British army during the onset of the First World War.After the initial discovery, further improvements to stainless steel occurred at a fairly rapid pace. In 1919, Elwood Haynes obtained a patent on martensitic stainless steel, in 1929 William J. Kroll of Luxembourg was the first to discover precipitation-hardening stainless steel, and in 1930 duplex stainless steel was first produced in Sweden at the Avesta Ironworks.The primary goal of any engineered surface technology is to produce / enhance the desired surface properties of a bulk metal workpiece.  These important product attributes are controlled by the coating system.