Third year master's student Yanyan Pan, under the guidance of Mr Lu Hailin, has published a paper as the first author in the journal of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Region II. Microporosity, microcracks and other defects exist on the surface of coatings in the micro-arc oxidation process, resulting in poor tribological performance and reduced corrosion resistance. In this study, a new environmentally friendly, fast and efficient pore sealing method was proposed to prepare a PUR (Polyurethane Reactive) composite coating on the surface of micro-arc oxidation film. The coating significantly enhanced the tribological and corrosion resistance properties of the MAO coating. The composite coating exhibited the best lubrication performance with a 70.8% reduction in the coefficient of friction when the mass fraction of PUR was 3 wt%. Compared with the traditional sealing technology, this experimental method is simple and inexpensive, and has a wide range of application prospects, providing a new solution to promote the large-scale industrial application of micro-arc oxidation technology.

Yanyan Pan, Hailin ^Lu*, Bo Cheng, Changkai Wang, Ke Dai, and Guangshen ^Xu*. Synergistic effect of polyurethane on pore-sealing and lubrication of microarc oxidation coating [J]. Langmuir. (Received, Impact Factor: 3.7, CAS II)

Fig. 1 PUR coating preparation process and coating performance characterisation results