Nuclear reaction profiling of chromium conversion coatings

Three types of nuclear reaction have been applied to study chromium conversion coatings on zinc electroplate. The 1005 keV resonance in the 52Cr(p,γ)53Mn reaction has been used to determine the depth versus concentration profile of chromium in the coatings, while the 16O(d,α)14N reaction has been used to profile oxygen content. α particle induced elastic forward scattering of protons (proton recoil) was used to determine the hydrogen profile in the samples. The results suggest that the newly introduced trivalent type treatments produce coatings containing comparable water/hydroxide contents to the established hexavalent type treatments. (author)