Investigation of the Properties of Ni–B/TiC Nanocomposite Coatings Produced at Different Particle Concentrations by Electrodeposition

In this experimental work, Ni–B/TiC nanocomposite coatings were deposited on a stainless steel substrate by conventional electrodeposition method and their features such as hardness, crystalline structure, corrosion and wear behavior were investigated. Furthermore, the same method was carried out in order to produce pure Ni and Ni–B alloy coatings and their properties were analyzed for comparison purposes. It was observed that nanocomposite coatings had much lower crystal grain size than pure Ni and slightly higher crystal grain size than Ni–B alloy. As a result of SEM analysis, it was determined that both B element and TiC particles were homogeneously deposited into the main structure, and the surface morphology was also affected by these components. According to the microhardness results, it was noted that the nanocomposite coating hardness with the highest hardness value increased by 160 pct compared to the pure Ni and 90 pct more than the Ni–B alloy. In the corrosion analysis, the corrosion resistance of nanocomposite coatings with TiC reinforcement improved significantly, and it was determined that the sample with 12 g/l TiC bath concentration performed 371 pct better than pure Ni and 440 pct better than Ni–B alloy in terms of corrosion current. Moreover, it was determined that the wear performance of nanocomposite coatings improved with increasing hardness and there was a 90 pct reduction in wear volume loss when compared to pure Ni.