Surface morphology and phase structure investigation of zinc and zinc-iron deposits electrodeposited from sulfate solution

In this paper, surface morphology and phase structure of zinc and zinc-iron alloy deposits deposited from sulfate solution were identified by means of X-ray diffraction(XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analyses, and the composition of black chromated deposits was also detected by using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS). It was found that some neoplastic particles existed on the surface of zinc deposits. However, zinc-iron alloy deposits were smooth and compact when magnified ten thousand times under SEM. The results also revealed that there existed remarkable texture in zinc and zinc-iron alloy deposits from the present sulfate bath. The iron content of zinc-iron deposits was about 2 wt%, examined by employing atomic absorption spectroscopy. The eta-phase was the only phase detected in the zinc and zinc-iron alloy deposits.