Abstract
This paper presents some results of plasma nitriding on hard chromium deposit. The substrates were C45 steel and $30~50{\;}\mu\textrm{m}$ of chromium deposit by electroplating was formed. Plasma nitriding was carried out in a plasma nitriding system with $95NH_3{\;}+{\;}SCH_4$ atmosphere at the pressure about 600 Pa and different temperature from $450^{\circ}C{\;}to{\;}720^{\circ}C$ for various time. Optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction were used to evaluate the characteristics of surface nitride layer formed by nitrogen diffusion from plasma atmosphere inward iCr coating and interface carbide layer formed by carbon diffusion from substrate outward Cr coating. The microhardness was measured using microhareness tester at the load of 100 gf. Corrosion resistance was evaluated using the potentiodynamic measurement in 3.5% NaG solution. A saturated calomel electrode (SiCE) was used as the reference electrode. Fig.1 shows the typical microstructures of top surface and cross-section for nitrided and unnitrided samples. Aaer plasma nitriding a sandwich structure was formed consisting of surface nitride layer, center chromium layer and interface carbide layer. The thickness of nitride and carbide layers was increased with the increase of processing temperature and time. Hardness reached about 1000Hv after nitriding while 900Hv for unnitrided hard chromium deposit. X-ray diffraction indicated that surface nitrided layer was a mixture of $Cr_2N$ and CrN at low temperature and erN at high temperature (Fig.2). Anodic polarization curves showed that plasma nitriding can greatly improve the corrosion resistance of chromium e1ectrodeposit. After plasma nitriding, the corrosion potential moved to noble direction and passive current density was lower by 1 to 4 orders of magnitude compared with chromium deposit(Fig.3).