Surface treatment and corrosion behaviour of austenitic stainless steel biomaterial

Abstract

In this article results from corrosion behaviour of austenitic stainless steel AISI 316L after different surface treatments are published. "As received" surface and surface after grinding resulted in lower resistance to pitting corrosion in physiological solution than electrochemically polished in H3PO4+H2SO4+H2O. Electropolishing also improved the surface roughness in comparison with the "as received" surface. Deposition of Al2O3 nanometric ALD coating improves the corrosion resistance of stainless steel in chloride-containing environment by shifting the breakdown potential toward more positive values. This oxide coating not only improves the corrosion resistance but it also affects the wettability of the surface, resulting in hydrophobic surface.