Oxidative post-treatments for enhanced corrosion resistance of aluminium electrodeposited from ionic liquids

In this paper we report the results of a study on the corrosion properties of carbon steel (UNI Fe360B) coated with a thin aluminium layer electrodeposited from ionic liquids and subsequently post-treated in an oxidizing environment. Two different types of treatments were investigated: thermal oxidation in air and electrochemical anodization. We found that heat treatments provided only a modest improvement of the anticorrosion properties while the electrochemical treatment produced a significant improvement.