Impact of nano additives on electroless nickel phosphorous (EN-P) coatings

An experimental work has been carried out to identify the impact and evaluation of various Nano additives in Electroless Nickel-Phosphorous (EN-P) bath. Different coatings were developed through EN-P bath on ASTM A106 B substrate influenced with Nano additives. The bath consisted of Nickel Sulphate (26 g/L), Sodium Hypo-Phosphite (30 g/L) as the reducing agent, sodium acetate (16 g/L) as the stabiliser and Ammonium Hydrogen Di Fluoride (8 g/L) as the complexing agent. Nano additives such as ZnO, Al2O3 and CuO were added at various concentrations of 0.1%, 0.5%, 1%, and 2% in the EN-P bath and their influences on coating process characteristics were studied. The output parameters such as mechanical, characterisation and corrosion resistance evaluations were measured. The investigation proved that the suggested method resulted in substantial improvement on the quality of the coatings developed. The evaluation was reported at 1 % concentration of Nano additives in the bath. The overall performance of Nano Al2O3 in the En-P bath resulted in significant improvement on the corrosion resistance and quality of the coating produced as compared to other Nano additives.