Now, chromium-free coatings to protect cars against rust

Washington, December 10 (ANI): A new chromium-free coating can help protect cars against rust, reveals new study.

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institutes for Silicate Research ISC in Würzburg and for Machine Tools and Forming Technology IWU in Chemnitz, developed an alternative anti-corrosion method based on nanocomposites as against the long-standing chromium plating prohibited since 2007.

The boffins along with colleagues at the Institute for Corrosion Protection Dresden GmbH had submerged steel sheets into a coating sol, applied a power coating and exposed them to various tests to produce the new nanomaterials.

While the steel sheets were kept in a chamber filled with atomized brine for 360 hours, or 15 days, at a temperature of 35 degrees, the metal sheets had also been placed in an environment chamber with a relative humidity of 100 percent for 240 hours, or 10 days.

ISC project manager Dr. Johanna Kron said: "These coatings protect most galvanized materials almost as well as commercial yellow chrome plating. Indeed, the new coatings are often even more effective than the chromium-free system and chromium(III) passivation currently on the market."

The study also found that the chromium-free coated metal sheets, which were less than a thousandth of a millimeter thick, could be formed in exactly the same way as yellow chrome plated sheets.

Kron revealed that the corrosion-proofing system could be expected to hit the market in around five years. (ANI)