Electrochemical method of deposition of an alumina coating on carbon fiber

Abstract

Electrochemically produced oxide coatings have a wide range of potential applications. Despite this, works on the electrochemical deposition of aluminum oxide can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and carbon fiber has not previously been used as a substrate. This work aimed to test and study the mentioned method of depositing aluminum oxide coatings, examine the structure of the resulting coatings, and investigate the possibility of using carbon fiber as a substrate. In this work, we proposed a new method for electrochemical deposition of aluminum oxide coatings from an aqueous electrolyte. The method permitted obtaining uniform and continuous coatings with a thickness of about 300 nm on flat glassy carbon substrates. The effect of current density, deposition time, and electrolyte composition on the thickness and uniformity of the coating was studied. The proposed method was successfully applied to the deposition of the coating on carbon fiber. In addition, the coatings had sufficient continuity, and their thickness reached 100 nm.