Advanced chrome-free organic–inorganic hybrid pretreatments for aerospace aluminum alloy 2024-T3—application of novel bis-ureasil sol–gel precursors

Effective pretreatment of aluminum alloys is very critical to success of protective coating systems for aerospace applications. While chromate-based pretreatments have been very successful for corrosion protection, they have been a target for replacement due to the increasingly stricter regulatory requirements arising from toxicity and carcinogenic nature of Cr(VI) used in such pretreatments. Among many approaches to develop alternative systems, the organic–inorganic hybrid (OIH) coatings based on sol–gel technology has advanced rapidly. We have successfully developed OIH coating systems by using suitably tailored organosilane precursors and sol–gel processing conditions. A series of novel bis-ureasil precursors have been developed and employed as organic precursor of OIH systems. Statistical design of experimental methodology (DoE) has been used to study and optimize compositional and process parameters using multifactor analysis of variance (ANOVA) analysis method. The corrosion resistance study (Potentiodynamic polarization, salt-spray corrosion test) shows that by proper choice of sol–gel precursors, cross-linkers, and reaction conditions, very dense, adherent and protective hybrid coatings, comparable in performance to chromate-based ones, can be obtained for aerospace aluminum alloy 2024-T3.