The aim of this paper was to investigate the effect of potassium stearate on the wettability behavior, corrosion resistance, roughness and thickness of reinforced and unreinforced plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO) coatings with Si3N4 nanopowders. Morphological characteristic, corrosion behavior and wetting properties of the coatings were evaluated using SEM, cyclic polarization and Wilhelmy plate method, respectively. In order to obtain a better evaluation of the contact angle, roughness of the coatings was studied by AFM. The results indicated that the nanocomposite hydrophobic coatings have the best corrosion resistance. Potassium stearate could repel water from the holes of coating by reacting with aluminum and producing aluminum stearate. The contact angle of nanocomposite and normal PEO coatings was increased up to 65° due to the addition of potassium stearate. This additive could also increase the hysteresis contact angle up to 51°.

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