Can steel be anodized? If so, how?

A. Hi Josh; hi Manalel. The reason that aluminum is anodized is because aluminum oxide can form a tight, tenacious, corrosion resistant coating on aluminum, such that aluminum can be beneficially anodized. But iron oxide (rust) will not to my knowledge form a tight, tenacious, corrosion resistant coating on steel, so I don't think it can be beneficially anodized.

I don't know quite what you have envision by 'similar results'. Nitriding would give a wear resistant surface, but it is conductive (unlike anodizing which is an insulator); further, it cannot absorb dye. Paint, powder coating, or electrophoretic lacquering might do what you want but would not be as hard or wear-resistant as anodizing. Certain platings might achieve what you could be looking for. Although anodizing of steel sounds like it is not the answer, if you can detail what characteristics you are looking for, people can probably direct you to finishing processes that deliver what you are looking for.

A. Anodizing forms an oxide protective barrier on aluminum but if you form iron oxide over steel it will not protect it adequately; for that reason a different compound has to be developed. You may want to explore blackening, galvanizing or phosphate coating of steel.

A. Hi. Some companies claim that they know an Electrochemical Process for stainless steel wherein Chrome Oxide can be produced/enhanced and by varying the thickness it attains different color. Maybe you are talking about that? But, to the best of my knowledge, the term "Anodizing" is used only for Anodizing of Aluminum.

Thanks,

A. You do not want to make the surface of steel more anodic. To protect it, it should have a continuous cationic coating.

? Hi Fred. I don't understand that one. Are you suggesting cataphoretic electrocoating (CED)? Please expound. Thanks!

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

A. Hi. Anodizing is used only for Aluminum, but for steel you can use metal spray (with Aluminum wire) over it.
After that you can Anodize it.
Good luck

A. Black oxided steel per MIL-DTL-13924 [on DLA] can closely resemble black anodized aluminum. Depends on the micro-roughnesses of the surfaces and the rust preventative (oil or wax) used on the black oxide.

A. Hi Basheer. There is no such commercial process. But you might wish to review the previously suggested link to www.steelanodize.com for your experimentation purposes.

Regards,

A. Hi Muhammed. Yes, it is indeed easy to get confused about whether steel can be anodized because it depends on exactly what you mean by "anodized" :-)

Trying to guess what your competitor is doing from the color of the coating may not get you too far. But might it be a QPP salt-bath nitriding process? Or a solid-film lubricant process? What properties does it offer that the customers are finding attractive?

Regards,

A. "Our competitors' kingpins (knuckle pins) are far better wear & corrosion resistant. I mean, better than hard chrome plated or carburized (case hardened & ground)."

In that case I would think that their product is carbonitrided, or nitrocarburized, both of which mean almost the same thing. And ... it's fairly deep, maybe .010" to .025"

That's the only way I know of to beat carburized and hardened and hard chrome.

A. Hi Muhammed. I don't know about "optimum", but yes, the point is that Q-P-Q sounds like an appropriate process for your needs, and perhaps what your competitor is doing!

Regards,

A. Hi. I do not believe there is any mechanical finishing process or conversion coating process which can make a steel pot into appropriate bakeware or cookware ... but as you mention, there are various coating processes that will do so.

Regards,

A. Hi Shahin. The previously offered pdfs from New Mexico Tech seem to explain the solutions they tested as well as their preferred embodiment. I don't understand quite what you mean about not being able to find a way:

What are you expecting from the process; what properties are you looking for; what are you doing; what are you attaining? Please try your best to keep the discussion here moving forward. Thanks :-)

Regards,

A. Hi Randy. I don't know what finish is on your cast iron parts, but it's certainly not anodizing. If they are not plated with anything, just bare cast iron, phosphatization would be the normal pretreatment. You can't do true phosphatization yourself, but you can apply naval jelly [on eBay or Amazon] which is the consumer's best imitation of a phosphatized coating. If the parts are plated with something like zinc, nickel, or chrome, you could try an adhesion promoter .
But if that doesn't work well enough (and it probably won't work great), you would probably have to remove the plating before painting, or have the parts replated instead of repainted.

Still, the most common cause of poor adhesion is simply that the parts aren't really clean :-(
Good luck and Regards,