Effect of Borax Content on Composition and Microstructure of Boride Layer by Electrodeposition

摘要

Boronizing of silicon steel is performed by electrodeposition in KCl-NaCl-NaF-Na_2B_4O_7·10H_2O molten salts with different amounts of borax. The effect of borax content on composition and microstructure of boride layer is studied. The compositional depth profile of boride layer is measured using the glow discharge spectrometry (GDS) and the depth from the surface to the substrate is taken as the layer thickness. The surface morphology is studied by atomic force microscopy (AFM). It is found that the thickness of the boride layer reached maximum values when the borax content is 0.05 mol. The roughness decreases with raising borax content from 0.01 to 0.05 mol while the further increase of borax content from 0.05 to 0.1 mol results in increase of roughness. The boride layer formed at borax content 0.05 mol shows smallest values of surface roughness.