Graphene coated on Ni plated steels

Coating plays a vital role in improving surface properties of a substrate, wettability, corrosion resistance and adhesion, for example. The coating industries have been driven to seek new technologies and materials to improve the efficiency of coatings by economic benefits and growing environmental concerns. Graphene a new generation material, is an allotrope of carbon, where atoms are tightly bonded together through covalent bond into a 2D honeycomb lattice. It possesses many excellent properties like water and oil repellent, high wear and scratch resistance and an effective corrosion barrier film. Such properties make it a very promising new generation material for developing advanced coating. Synthesis of graphene was carried out on steel substrate using a LPG and hydrogen gas mixture via atmospheric pressure CVD process. The deposition is made from precursor in the gas phase which absorb on the target surface producing a condensed phase of the specific material. Argon gas has been used in the process to maintain inert atmosphere. An interface layer of Ni has been plated over the steels substrate through electrode less method for uniform deposition of graphene. The influences of parameters used in CVD for the graphene deposition were studied in order to obtain continuous monolayer graphene. Raman spectroscopy confirmed the growth of graphene over the substrates while Coating uniformity, number of layers deposited and crystallinity of graphene were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. Ratio of LPG and hydrogen gas mixture has been optimized for uniform coating of graphene over the steels and their influence over the characteristics peaks of graphene were discussed