Synergetic improvements in surface hydrophobicity and wear resistance of TC4 materials via the combination of rapid heating and EtOH quenching methods

Ti-6Al-4V (TC4) materials with high hydrophobicity and wear resistance improve anticorrosion performance when utilized in offshore conditions. In this work, a novel strategy for simultaneously enhancing the surface hydrophobicity and wear resistance of surface textured TC4 (selected laser melting, SLM-TC4) materials was proposed. An in-situ deposition of ultrathin carbon film is realized via rapid induction heating followed by the EtOH quenching (IHQ-TC4) process. After the IHQ process, the surface chemical composition evolves from Ti (SLM-TC4) to the mixture of carbon film and TiO₂ nanoparticles (IHQ-TC4), and the corresponding surface roughness decreases, which results in a surface wettability transition from hydrophilicity (SLM-TC4) to hydrophobicity (IHQ-TC4, 125°). Molecular dynamics simulations were utilized to explore the wettability transition mechanism, and found that the surface chemical composition evolution is the dominant factor, and the carbon film is responsible for the hydrophobicity of IHQ-TC4. Moreover, the surface hardness and wear resistance of IHQ-TC4 are greatly enhanced compared to those of SLM-TC4. The collective enhancements to the hydrophobicity and wear resistance of TC4 materials via the IHQ process provide a novel and facile strategy for enhancing the anticorrosion performance of TC4 materials utilized in offshore conditions.