Fabrication of a corrosion resistant superhydrophobic surface on magnesium alloy substrate

Superhydrophobic surface was obtained on pretreated magnesium alloy substrates via Nano silver deposition and electroless Ni-P plating followed by stearic acid modification. The surface with hierarchical structure had a water contact angle of 157.8° and exhibited excellent superhydrophobicity. The surface morphology of the sample, the chemical compositions and wettability were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), XRD (X-ray diffraction), Fourier transformed infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and water contact angle measurement. The potential polarization curves revealed the corrosion resistance of superhydrophobic sample was enhanced as the corrosion current density decreased by 2 orders of magnitude