Corrosion study of PVD coatings and conductive polymer deposited on mild steel: Part I: Polypyrrole

Electrochemical deposition of polypyrrole on mild steel substrate was carried out by cyclic voltammetry and galvanostatic technique from neutral aqueous sodium tartrate medium. Homogenous polypyrrole layer for further studies was achieved by galvanostatic technique at constant current density of 5 mA/cm2. TiN, CrN and diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings deposited by physical vapor deposition (PVD) technique on mild steel were used for comparison of corrosion properties with polypyrrole film. Electrochemical synthesis of polypyrrole was also applied as a solution for the PVD coatings porosity problem. Polypyrrole film was successfully deposited on all studied PVD coatings by the galvanostatic technique under special conditions. The protection against corrosion was studied by several methods — measurement of potentiodynamic polarization curves, Tafel plot analysis and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy in 3% NaCl solution.