Super-hydrophobicity and corrosion resistance of laser surface textured AISI 304 stainless steel decorated with Hexadecyltrimethoxysilane (HDTMS)

Abstract

Stainless steel (SS) has long been widely used in the outdoor environment as engineering material due to its excellent corrosion resistance. Recently it is found that super-hydrophobicity on the stainless steel surface also has significant effect on its corrosion resistance. In this work, laser surface texturing (LST) and decoration of hexadecyltrimethoxysilane (HDTMS) duplex treatment were carried out to improve the super-hydrophobicity and corrosion resistance of AISI 304 SS. Comparative appraisals of super-hydrophobicity and corrosion resistance for the related samples were conducted via wetting behavior with distilled water and electrochemical performance with simulated haze solution. The surface morphologies of ground 304 SS (G-304 SS), HDTMS + ground 304 SS (HG-304 SS), surface textured 304 SS (T-304 SS) and HDTMS + surface textured 304 SS (HT-304 SS) before and after electrochemical tests were obtained by scanning electron microscope (SEM). The results showed that micropores with different designed distances have distributed on the surfaces of 304 SS samples after LST treatment. When the micropore distance was 50 μm, this HT-304 SS exhibited a highest contact angle of 158.9°. Electrochemical experiments revealed that the HT-304 SS suggested better corrosion resistance in comparison to the G-304 SS, HG-304, and T-304 SS samples, which was mainly due to its outstanding super-hydrophobicity property.