Comparative Tribological Characterization of Electroless Ni–P, Ni–B, and Duplex Ni–P/Ni–B Coatings on Mild Steel

A variety of industries have a high demand for nickel-coated materials useful in structural applications. The electroless method has proven to be a highly cost-effective and flexible process in developing a plethora of coating depositions of varying depths. Such coatings can further undergo mechanical treatments to result in substantial improvements useful in specific industrial applications. In the present work, the Ni-P, Ni-B and duplex Ni-P/Ni-B coatings have been prepared on mild steel specimens through electroless deposition techniques, and their tribological characters have been investigated. A tribometer has been used to estimate the frictional characteristics of the coated samples to compare the friction and wear characteristics of the single and duplex coated elements. It was observed that the duplex Ni-P-Ni-B coated samples exhibits 60% less wear while NiB-NiP coated samples showed significantly higher microhardness among all three variants.