Materials Chemistry and Physics 129 (2011) 1063–1070 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Materials Chemistry and Physics j ourna l ho me pag e: www.elsevier.com/locate/matchemphys The influence of SiC particles on the corrosion resistance of electroless, Cu–P composite coating in 1 M HCl Soheila Faraji a , Afidah Abdul Rahim a,∗ , Norita Mohamed a , Coswald Stephen Sipaut b , Bothi Raja a a School of Chemical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 USM, Penang, Malaysia b School of Engineering and Information Technology, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, P.O. Box 2073, 88999 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 12 October 2010 Received in revised form 7 April 2011 Accepted 24 May 2011 Keywords: Composite materials Coatings Corrosion test Electron microscopy (SEM) a b s t r a c t The present paper aims to compare the corrosion resistance of the electroless Cu–P–SiC with Cu–P com- posite coating on carbon steel in 1 M HCl solution by the weight loss, potentiodynamic polarisation and electrochemical impedance spectroscopic (EIS) techniques. The study reveals that, the corrosion current density (I corr ) and the double layer capacitance (C dl ) values decrease, the charge transfer resistance (R ct ) and inhibition of efficiencies (IE %) increase with the incorporation of SiC particles in the Cu–P matrix indicating the improvement in corrosion resistance. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Electroless plating is a kind of facile method to prepare metal or alloy thin films on the surface of conductive, semiconductive and even insulated substrates. Comparing with physical vapour deposition (PVD) and chemical vapour deposition (CVD) methods, electroless plating is much easier, and its cost is rather low. In addi- tion, electroless plating method has good adaptability on the shape of the substrates, which makes it easy for plating a metal layer on the surface of fine particles. In the past few decades, a lot of research work has been carried out on the electroless plating of Ni and Cu on particles or other substrates [1]. Diversified metallic and non-metallic surfaces endowed with attractive appearance, high corrosion resistance, electromag- netism, low density, and some other special functions were produced by electroless copper (EC). Thus, this technique has been widely used in the electronic industry, aerospace industry and machinery manufacturing. The extensive demand for these applica- tions promotes the development of copper formulation and plating techniques [2]. Electroless copper coatings are being used on plastics [3], ceram- ics [4], polymers [5] and other non-conducting materials. As copper is the second best electrical conducting material after silver, elec- troless copper coating can open the doors for another level of advanced materials due to its cost effectiveness. The practical appli- cations of the copper coatings are mainly due to their high-thermal ∗ Corresponding author. Fax: +60 46574854. E-mail address: afidah@usm.my (A.A. Rahim). conductivity, high electromigration resistance and low resistivity properties [4,6]. The electroless composites with the copper matrix seem to be very attractive for commercial applications in industries. Carbon steel is one of the major construction materials used extensively in chemical and allied industries dealing with acidic, alkaline and salt solutions. The corrosion of carbon steel is a major infrastructure degradation problem in industries, including the chemical, mineral, materials and petrochemical industries world- wide. Acid solutions are generally used for the removal of rust and scale in industrial processes. Hydrochloric acid is the most difficult of the common acids to handle from the standpoints of corrosion and construction materials. Extreme care is required in the selec- tion of materials to handle the acid by itself, even in relatively dilute concentrations or in process solutions containing apprecia- ble amounts of hydrochloric acid. This acid is very corrosive to most of the common metals and alloys [7–9]. In order to improve the corrosion resistance of carbon steel, they are often alloyed or surface treated with more corrosion resistant metals such as such as Ni [10,11], Cu [11,12], Sn [12], Zn [13,14], Co [14] and inhibitors [15–19]. Because of its excellent corrosion resistant properties, tin-plated carbon steel is frequently used for the production of beverage cans, food cans, and aerosol cans [20]. In recent years, electroless plating has won great popularity in preparing composite coatings, which are generally prepared by adding solid particles to the regular electroless plating solution to achieve co-deposition of the solid particles. The co-deposition improves the mechanical and tribological properties of coatings. The inclusion of ceramic particles such as Al 2 O 3 [21], TiO 2 [22], B 4 C [23] and SiC into the metal matrix can significantly improve the hardness, anti-wear [24] and anti-corrosion [23] property of the 0254-0584/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.matchemphys.2011.05.060