The second year master's student of the group, Yang Fan, under the supervision of Mr Lu Hailin, published a paper as the first author in the journal of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Region II. In this paper, a method is proposed to prepare ceramic-metal composite coatings: hard anodic alumina oxide coatings are etched using different concentrations of phosphoric acid (H₃PO₄) as etchant, and then modified by cathodic deposition of nickel (Ni). This method successfully solved the problems of low hardness and poor wear resistance of hard anodised aluminium oxide coatings. The study systematically analysed the bonding effect of hard anodic aluminium oxide coatings with Ni layer after etching with different concentrations of H₃PO₄, and conducted friction, corrosion and coating bonding tests. Langmuir. 

Fan Yang, Hailin Lu,* Zhanshuai Fan, Zhihao Nie, Liankun Zhang, and Xiao Cui*.Study on the Secondary Cathodic Deposition Modification and Properties of Anodic Oxidation Coating on 6061 Aluminum Alloy [J].DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.4c04924. (Impact Factor : 3.914, CAS II).

Figure . Flowchart of the experiment