Enhancing Corrosion Resistance and Hardness Properties of High-Carbon Steel and Aluminium Bronze Alloy Through Novel Surface Modification Technique

High carbon steel has been extensively utilised in various industrial applications, due to its consequential importance to strength-hardness balance and relatively low cost. With a mediocre level of corrosion resistance, the improvement is very important to extend its serviceability. Studied steels were analysed by using advanced characterisation techniques that led to in-depth investigation on its behaviour toward corrosion degradation in marine environment. Different studies on the microstructural influence, volume fraction, phase transformation, alloying elements, secondary precipitations and heat treatment processes, were demonstrated to understand the behaviour and corrosion mechanism before proceeding to surface modification technique to enhance chemical and mechanical properties. At the same time, million tonnes of metallurgical slag, glass and complex mixture of plastics from Automotive Shredder Residue (ASR) were discarded into landfills every year, polluting the environment. Combining these two major issues, we delivered an alternative solution to enhance corrosion resistance of high carbon steel. Series of multi-hybrid layers have been successfully developed on the surface of high carbon steel with not only improved in corrosion resistance, but also hardness, derived from waste-integrated inputs as source for production that performed through single step surface modification technique. In-depth research of these generated layers has been conducted using various analytical methods. Results have revealed a significant decrease of corrosion rate on these innovative waste-based multi-hybrid layer steels and improvement in hardness performance. An overview to compare the multi-hybrid layer high carbon steel with different type of steel high Cr cast steel has shown a competitive match on its corrosion resistance. These findings have substantially highlighted the significant improvement of corrosion resistance properties of high carbon steel can be achieved by using various waste streams as the main source ...