Abstract
This study has been performed to investigate the effect of $CO_2$ content on the growth characteristics of the compound layer, porous layer and corrosion characteristics of carbon steels after gaseous nitrocarburizing in $70%-NH_3-CO_2-N_2$ at $580^{\circ}C$ for 2.5 hrs. The results obtained from the experiment were the thickness of the compound and porous layers increased with increasing $CO_2$ contents. At the same fixed gas composition the thickness of the compound and porous layer increased with increasing carbon content of the specimens. X-ray diffraction analysis showed that compound layer was mainly consisted of ${\varepsilon}-Fe_{2-3}(N,C)$ and ${\gamma}^{\prime}-Fe_4N$ as the increased with $CO_2$ contents in atmosphere, compound layer was chiefly consisted of ${\varepsilon}-Fe_{2-3}(N,C)$ phase. With increasing $CO_2$ content and total flow rate in gaseous nitrocarburizing, the amount of ${\varepsilon}-Fe_{2-3}(N,C)$ phase in the compound layer was increased. The current density of passivity decreased with increasing $CO_2$ content due to the development of porous layer at the out most surface of ${\varepsilon}-Fe_{2-3}(N,C)$.
