ABSTRACT
Cleaning of a Cold-Rolled Steel (CRS) substrate by a plasma of a non-reactive gas and the deposition of a plasma-polymerized film (PP-film) of hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDS) as a pretreatment system to improve the corrosion of painted metals was investigated. Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) was used to characterize the degree of corrosion protection achieved by this pretreatment system. An accelerated corrosion test was conducted to verify the EIS results. The EIS data indicated that the degree of corrosion protection achieved with this pretreatment system was comparable to that found using zinc phosphating as a pretreatment. The results of the accelerated environmental tests and the EIS results show that a plasma cleaning is required to achieve satisfactory corrosion protection of plasma treated/E-coated CRS.
