Study of surface roughness and corrosion performance of Ni/Zn–Fe and Zn–Fe/Ni compositionally modulated multilayer coatings

Compositionally modulated multilayer coatings consisting alternative layers of nickel and zinc–iron alloy were electroplated using dual bath technique. The coating's surface morphology was studied using a scanning electron microscope. The effects of coatings configuration, i.e., order and the number of layers on the coatings surface roughness was investigated. It was observed that as the number of layers increases in the different Ni/Zn–Fe CMM coatings, 2 and 4-layer Zn–Fe/Ni CMM coatings the final surface roughness is decreased due to the lower grain growth of zinc–iron individual layers. The coatings corrosion protection performance was evaluated using Tafel extrapolation, anodic polarization and salt spray tests. The results of corrosion study showed that all Ni/Zn–Fe and Zn–Fe/Ni CMM coatings, except the 8-layer Zn–Fe/Ni coating, had a better corrosion protection performance compared to the single layer zinc–iron alloy coating or nickel coating.