Study on cerium-doped nano-TiO2 coatings for corrosion protection of 316 L stainless steel

Many methods have been reported on improving the photogenerated cathodic protection of nano-TiO2 coatings for metals. In this work, nano-TiO2 coatings doped with cerium nitrate have been developed by sol-gel method for corrosion protection of 316 L stainless steel. Surface morphology, structure, and properties of the prepared coatings were investigated by X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The corrosion protection performance of the prepared coatings was evaluated in 3 wt% NaCl solution by using electrochemical techniques in the presence and absence of simulated sunlight illumination. The results indicated that the 1.2% Ce-TiO2 coating with three layers exhibited an excellent photogenerated cathodic protection under illumination attributed to the higher separation efficiency of electron-hole pairs and higher photoelectric conversion efficiency. The results also showed that after doping with an appropriate concentration of cerium nitrate, the anti-corrosion performance of the TiO2 coating was improved even without irradiation due to the self-healing property of cerium ions.