| Summary: | The mild steel is commonly used in high volume for automobile parts, plates, and wire products. However, it usually contacts with ambient temperature and prone to corrosion. Corrosion is an inevitable effect that will take place with the presence of water, air and hydrogen ions. Thus, coating is an alternative solution and popular in curing the corrosion problem faced by iron-based product. Activation is one of the important steps before the coating process. The activation or known as pre-cleaning is essential for a proper adhesion of coating material onto the base product. In this study, nitric acid was used as the activator in the activation process. The effect of the activator on the coating performance at different concentration was investigated. After the activator pre-treatment, the mild steel was coated with cobalt alloys using a conventional electroplating method. The coated steel was characterized by surface examination and elemental composition analysis using Scanning electron microscope attached with the Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscope. The results revealed that the surface became smoother after the activation. A complete and smooth cobalt alloy coating was successfully protected the steel. In fact, the activation process must be wisely controlled to achieve the desired purpose of cleaning but not to destroy and corrode the surface of the product. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
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