In the present work, we studied the effect of the presence of different concentrations of each of Triton-X-100 and Tween-80 surfactants in the bath of permanganate-phosphate conversion coating (PPC) on the corrosion resistance and the microstructure of the prepared coats. The coats were investigated using a scanning electron microscope (SEM), an energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDX), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and potentiodynamic polarization techniques. The SEM results show that, on addition of the surfactants to the PPC bath, the porosity of the coat decreases and the coating layer becomes more compact. EIS results indicated that the presence of 0.01 M Triton-X-100 or 0.01 M Tween-80 in the coating solution caused an increase in the protection efficiency of the coat up to 93.7% and 84.1%, respectively. The potentiodynamic polarization results indicated that the two surfactants mainly act as anodic inhibitors due to the adsorption of their molecules at the anodic sites of the surface of steel and retard its oxidation reaction. The EDX and XPS results confirmed the results of the other techniques. A mechanism for the role of the surfactants in the coating process was proposed using the results of XPS and the other techniques.
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