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A Study on the Hydrogen Evolving Activity of Electroplated Ni-P Coating by Using the Taguchi Method

Pages: 237-245

Hung-Bin Lee^1,*, Chen-Hsiung Hsu² and Dong-Sing Wuu^1,3

¹Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Da-Yeh University, Changhua 51591, Taiwan, Republic of China
²Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, Da-Yeh University, Changhua 51591, Taiwan, Republic of China
³Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung 40227, Taiwan, Republic of China

Received: January 12, 2011, Accepted: May 18, 2011, Available online: June 27, 2011

Abstract: The optimal catalytic activity of the electrodeposited Ni-P coating with the control of the process parameters was performed in this study by using Taguchi’s method. The controlled process parameters included current density, duty cycle and the concentration of the phosphorous acid in the electrolyte. The correlation among the controlled parameters and the resulted hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) activity was discussed with emphasis on the influence of the P content, internal stress, roughness and grain size of the coating. The optimal HER property was obtained for the electrodeposition of Ni-P coating with a phosphorous acid concentration of 5g/l, current density of 16A/dm² and duty cycle of 100 %. The resulted Ni-P coating with a better HER property was the one with P content 3at%, an internal stress higher than 10MPa, grain size 10~15nm and surface roughness higher than 100nm. In addition, the cracking of the coating due to high internal stress favored the raise of the HER activity.

Keywords: Taguchi’s method, electrodeposited Ni-P coating, hydrogen evolution rate, phosphorous acid