Review on the phosphate-based conversion coatings of magnesium and its alloys

Magnesium(Mg)and its alloys are lightweight as well as biocompatible and possess a high strength-to-weight ratio,making them suitable for many industries,including aerospace,automobile,and medical.The major challenge is their high susceptibility to corrosion,thereby limiting their usability.The considerably lower reduction potential of Mg compared to other metals makes it vulnerable to galvanic coupling.The oxide layer on Mg offers little corrosion resistance because of its high porosity,inhomogeneity,and fragility.Chemical conversion coatings(CCs)belong to a distinct class because of underlying chemical reactions,which are fundamentally different from other types of coating.Typically,a CC acts as an intermediate sandwich layer between the base metal and an aesthetic paint.Although chromate CCs offer superior performance compared to phosphate CCs,yet still they release carcinogenic hexavalent chromium ions(Cr^(6+));therefore,their use is prohibited in most European nations under the Registration,Evaluation,Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals legislation framework.Phosphate-based CCs are a cost-effective and environment-friendly alternative.Accordingly,this review primarily focuses on different types of phosphate-based CCs,such as zinc,calcium,Mg,vanadium,manganese,and permanganate.It discusses their mechanisms,current status,pretreatment practices,and the influence of various parameters-such as pH,temperature,immersion time,and bath composition-on the coating performance.Some challenges associated with phosphate CCs and future research directions are also elaborated.

Nanoindentation and Wear Characteristics of Al 5083/SiC_p Nanocomposites Synthesized by High Energy Ball Milling and Spark Plasma Sintering

AI 5083//10 wt% SiCp nano composites have been synthesized by means of high energy ball milling followed by spark plasma sintering （SPS）. Nano composites produced via this method exhibited near-theoretical density while retaining the nano-grained features. X-ray diffraction （XRD） analysis indicated that the crystalline size of the ball milled AI 5083 matrix was observed to be～25 nm and it was coarsened up to～30 nm after SPS. Nano indentation results of nano composites demonstrated a high hardness of～280 HV with an elastic modulus of 126 GPa. Wear and friction characteristics with addition of SiCp reinforcement exhibited significant improvement in terms of coefficient of friction and specific wear rate to that of nano structured AI 5083 alloy. The reduction in specific wear rate in the nanocomposite was mainly due to the change of wear mechanism from adhesive to abrasive wear with the addition of SiCp which resulted in high hardness associated with nano-grained microstructure.

Enhanced thermoelectric performance in p-type ZrCoSb based half-Heusler alloys employing nanostructuring and compositional modulation

ZrCoSb based half-Heusler(HH)alloys have been widely studied as a p-type thermoelectric(TE)material for power generation applications in the mid-temperature regime.However,their intrinsically high thermal conductivity has been found to be detrimental for the improvement in their thermoelectric figure-of-merit(ZT),which presently is far below unity.In the current work,a state-of-the-art ZT~1.1 at 873 K was realized in an optimized composition of nanostructured Zr1-xHfxCoSb_(0.9)Sn_(0.1) HH alloys by employing compositional modulation i.e.grain-by-grain compositional variations,which leads to a substantial increase in its power factor coupled with a concurrent decrease in its thermal conductivity.Significant reduction in the phonon mean-free-path is observed on Hf substitution,which is comparable to the average crystallite size(~25 nm),thus leading to a very low thermal conductivity of~2.2Wm^(-1)K^(-1) at 873 K,which is amongst the lowest reported in HH alloys.The TE device characteristics,estimated using cumulative temperature dependence model for quantitative evaluation of TE performance,yielded an output power density of~10 Wcm
2 with a leg efficiency of~10%in the optimized composition of nanostructured Zr_(1-x)Hf_(x)CoSb_(0.9)Sn_(0.1) HH alloys,which is comparable to the reported efficiencies of other state-of-the-art TE materials.