Enhancing Electrical Conductivity and Corrosion Resistance of CrN Coating by Pt Addition
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript is suitable to the journal scope and contains interesting information about doped CrN coatings. Minor revisions are needed before publishing.
I recommend to reconsider the title.
If possible, please, support this statement by reference: „Transition-metal nitride coatings have high hardness, good chemical inertness and high resistance to wear and corrosion. [DOI: 10.1016/J.SPMI.2020.106681]„.
Please, describe Experimental details more carefully.
Could you please specify in the following sentence what kind of solid solution effect do you mean: „According to the previous results [19-22], this shift is likely results of both local internal stress and lattice distortion induced by the solid solution effect.“
Figure 2: what is the smooth layer between the substrate and the CrN-Pt film?
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
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Reviewer 3 Report
Manuscript Number: Manuscript ID: coatings-1451116 entitled:
High electrical conductivity and outstanding corrosion resistance of CrN coating by Pt addition
Authors
Hulin Wu , Yihe Wang * , Lin Xiang , Gunlin Song * , Zhiwen Xie
General comment
The paper presents a study on the novel CrN-Pt coating prepared by the plasma enhanced magnetron sputtering regarding the potential effects of Pt doping on the growth structure, electrical conductivity and corrosion property.
Some recommendations and observation are listed below:
- The introduction part can be update with recent literature, as the subject is actual.
- What is the number of replicates for each test?
Specify the dimensions of electrodes.
Present the thickness of each coating.
- In Figure 4a, current density is presented and not log I, delete log I.
Replot Figure 4a and include E (V vs ESC) on Y-axis.
- Calculate the protective efficacy (Pi) of the coatings from currents values. Add the incertitude for each parameter.
- In order to investigate the corrosion performance of CN coatings, it was well-known that EIS has found its efficacy and give information about the coating and confirm the Tafel potentiodynamic polarization measurements.
- Compare the results obtained in this work with other CrN coatings reported in literature.
- Starting with R 123 the font are different from the main text.
Author Response
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Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Overall, the manuscript is improved but clarification to the points below is needed before accepting the paper for publication.
- In figure 1, authors have sought to demonstrate that Pt is primarily segregated along the grain boundaries. There are two problems with this data – first it is too noisy to specifically attribute the location of the grain boundaries themselves. Second, the spatial resolution of SEM EDS is ~ 1 um. This would make it impossible to distinguish the location of Pt atoms since the grains themselves are 20-30 nm. Clearly, a better technique is needed (TEM EDS). If that is difficult to obtain, authors can cite studies that prove that Pt segregates primarily at the grain boundaries.
- AFM data shown in figure 3 is puzzling. Why are we not able to see the grains themselves (like we do in SEM), here. From the SEM images, it appears as though grains have topographic variation. So clearly that should also be reflected in the AFM data. Please reacquire AFM images at a finer resolution or explain why grains are not seen in the AFM.
Author Response
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