Replacing Toxic Hard Chrome Coatings: Exploring the Tribocorrosion Behaviour of Electroless Nickel-Boron Coatings

Electroless nickel-boron coatings present outstanding properties such as high hardness, excellent wear resistance and uniform coating, and thus they are considered to be alternative to toxic hard chrome coatings. However, they contain lead that is toxic and used as stabilizer in the plating bath. This study aims to investigate the tribocorrosion behaviour of lead-free electroless nickel-boron coatings. In the present research, several tests were carried out to investigate the behaviour of these coatings under both dry and tribocorrosion reciprocating sliding wear against alumina balls, at room temperature. The open circuit potential (OCP) method was used to determine the degradation mechanism of the coatings. The results of the tribocorrosion and dry wear tests showed that the performance of coatings was very different from each other. A steady state for the coefficient of friction (COF) is achieved during the tribocorrosion test, whereas the constant production of debris and their presence in the contact implied an increase in COF with distance during the dry wear test. The wear mechanisms of these coatings also presented variations in these tests. It was found that the wear area calculated from tribocorrosion is lower (56 µm2) than the one from dry sliding test (86 µm2).