Sintered Cu Alloyed Stainless Steels and Their Corrosion Behavior

Copper is an effective element to activate the sintering process of stainless steels and to enhance corrosion resistance of the sintered specimens. Ways of introducing Cu into stainless steel powders lead to different consequence in the microstructure and corrosion behavior of sintered Cu alloyed stainless steel. In the present work, two methods, mixing Cu with stainless steel powder and coating stainless steel powder with Cu by electroless plating, were introduced in order to investigate their influence on the sintered specimens. It was found that the sintered specimens from Cu-coated stainless steel powders (1-5 wt.%Cu) produce less porous surfaces with isolated pores than the specimens from mixed powders and the former have obviously high density and relatively even Cu distribution. Potentiodynamic polarization measurements indicate that Cu-electroless plating of 1-5 wt.%Cu improves the corrosion resistance of sintered stainless steel due to the lowering of passivation current density.