Electrochemical Corrosion Characteristics of Arc-Ion-Plated AlTiN Coating for Marine Application.

In this study, aluminum titanium nitride (AlTiN) coating was deposited by arc ion plating onto mirror finish STS 304 plate. The surface and cross-section of the coating was characterized by SEM and EDX analysis. Several electrochemical corrosion experiments were performed including rest potential measurement, potentiodynamic polarization experiment and Tafel analysis. The result of the experiments indicated that the AlTiN coating presented lower corrosion current density than the substrate material (STS 304) under uniform corrosion environment. It was also observed that AlTiN coating may have a risk of being attacked by localized corrosion attack such as pitting when pores or micro/nano particles in the coating are exposed to chloride ion containing corrosion environment, especially marine environment.