• Advances in materials Research
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.233-243
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• 2012

Thermal reactive diffusion coating of vanadium carbide on DIN 2714 steel substrate was performed in a molten borax bath at $950-1050^{\circ}C$. The coating formed on the surface of the substrate had uniform thickness ($1-12{\mu}m$) all over the surface and the coating layer was hard (2430-2700 HV), dense, smooth and compact. The influence of the kinetics parameters, temperature and time, has been investigated. Vanadium carbide coating was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDX) and X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD). The corrosion resistance of the coating was evaluated by potentiodynamic polarization in 3.5% NaCl solution. The results obtained showed that decrease of coating microhardness following increasing time and temperature is owing to the coarsening of carbides and coating grain size.