Corrosion Resistance of TiN Imitation Gold Decoration Coatings on Golden-Pen Components

Abstract

Experiments were carried out with different process parameters to investigate the effects of used parameters on corrosion resistance of TiN coatings obtained. In experiments, TiN imitation gold decoration coatings were prepared on 1Cr13 pen-point and brass chromium plating pen-coil by multi-arc ion plating method. The phase composition of TiN coatings was measured by x-ray diffraction. The corrosion resistance of TiN coatings was tested by salt-mist and artificial-sweat experiments. The relationship between corrosion resistance of coatings and process parameters were analyzed. Therefore, the optimum process parameters were achieved suitable for plating coatings on substrates of 1Cr13 pen-point and brass chromium plating pen-coil with good imitation gold. Imitation gold plating layers obtained have good gloss, corrosion resistance, high hardness, wear resistance, and easy to maintain. The results showed that the corrosion resistance of coatings is more easily influenced by changes of PN2 and Vbom than that of matrix-bias voltage. The TiN coatings are of resistant to corrosion no matter they are in single or multi phase structure. The optimum parameters of achieving good corrosion resistance of TiN coatings are PN2=0.48Pa, Vbom=400V，bias=-20V. Under the optimum conditions, the obtained surface corrosion resistance state of the coatings can reach at least eight grades, even above ten grades.