Engineering of metal-oxide nanoparticle surfaces

The structural properties and the corrosion protective effect of pure ZrO/sub 2/ and ZrO/sub 2//organic (hybrid) coatings on iron surfaces prepared by the sol-gel route were investigated. Zirconia sols contained uniform nano-sized particles were obtained from organic precursors and coating procedure were realized by spin-coating technique. The results showed that combined inorganic/organic coating systems has more effective against corrosion. Atomic force microscopy images showed complete covered layers contained spherical nanoparticles.