In this article, a novel and facile method is used to construct superhydrophobic surfaces on aluminum alloys. A solution of aluminum chloride hexahydrate and N-dodecyltrimethoxysilane (DTMS) in ethanol was used as the electrolyte solution. The hydrolysis of DTMS was accelerated during the electrodeposition process, and the hydrolysate was bonded to a pretreated aluminum surface. The prepared aluminum alloy sample exhibits both superhydrophobicity (the surface water contact angle reached 155°) and excellent corrosion resistance. The inhibition efficiency of this sample is as high as 99.9% in 3.5 wt % NaCl solution, which remains at 98% even after 30 days of immersion. Thus, our fabrication can be well applied to the field of marine corrosion protection. Therefore, the working mechanism was discussed by confocal Raman microspectroscopy (CRM). In addition, the investigation by CRM and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) also indicates that superhydrophobic samples show good stability in NaCl solution. The fabrication method can inspire new ideas for the construction of superhydrophobic aluminum alloys in the marine environment.
In the past two decades, nanocrystalline (nc) metals and alloys are known to possess some novel mechanical properties, such as high strength, superior wear resistance and possibly superplasticity at low temperature or high strain rates, [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Compared to the conventional coarse-grained (CG) materials with grain size typically larger than 1 lm. However, some experiments showed that nc metals and alloys hold unexpected low ductility being generally less than a few percent, [9][10][11][12][13][14] which may obliterate their potential application as advanced structure materials. The factors that limit the ductility of nc or nanostructured (ns) materials include the artifacts from immature processing (such as inert gas condensation, ball-milling or mechanical alloying) [2,[15][16] and the mechanical instability of materials with little or no strain hardening capacity because of their low dislocation accumulation capability. [3,[17][18] Recently, by adjusting the microstructure of nc and ns materials, some researchers attained nc or ns materials with a good combination of strength and ductility. [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] For example, Wang et al fabricated a ns Cu with a bimodal grain size distribution of micrometer-sized grains embedded inside a matrix of ultrafine grains, by a thermomechanical treatment of the severe plastic deformation (SPD) Cu. [21] Such ns Cu holds a high tensile ductility with 65 % elongation to failure (d ETF ) and 30 % uniform elongation (d UE ), and a moderate ultimate tensile strength (r UTS ) of 400 ∼ 500 MPa. The inhomogeneous microstructure increases the ability of work hardening and leads to an increase of the tensile ductility of ns Cu. [21] Lu et al produced the high-purity Cu samples with nanoscale growth twins inside the ultrafine grains (ufg) by the pulsed electrodeposition technique. [22] This nano-scale growth twined Cu exhibited a very high yield strength (r Y ) of 900 MPa and a good d ETF of 13.5 %. The growth twins serve as effect barriers to dislocation motion and also simultaneously provide sources for dislocation nucleation, which imparts ns Cu a good ductility and electrical conductivity. Though the foregoing nanostructured metals exhibit the optimized mechanical properties and in some way can meet the need in engineering application, they, strictly speaking, don't belong to the "true" nc materials with grain size < 100 nm because their grain sizes locate between 100 nm ∼ 1 lm. In fact, what is the intrinsic mechanical property of the "true" nc metals and the relation between their mechanical properties including both strength and ductility and the grain size are still not very clear.In previous studies, most understanding and information about the mechanical properties and deformation mechanism were accumulated from different individual experiments on different nc metals or alloys with a single or a few grain sizes, fabricated by the different preparation method. Up to now a systemic experimental data is not available on study the changing trends of...
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