Comparative EIS study of pretreatment performance in coated metals

Various coated metal samples with different pretreatments were investigated by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). Variables were the substrate (cold-rolled steel and hot-dipped galvanized steel), phosphate system (iron and zinc phosphate), post rinse (chromate and silane/zirconium rinse) and paint systems, The corrosion performance was determined on the basis of coating degradation, water uptake and interface delamination of the tested samples. The zinc phosphate performed better than iron phosphate on CRS. The silane/Zr rinse did not perform well in the CRS/iron-phosphate system. However, it showed a better performance than the chromate when used as a post rinse of zinc phosphate, Salt spray test (SST) and adhesion test results of the same samples are also reported in this paper and compared to the EIS data. The correlation among three test methods was poor. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.