Additive manufacturing (AM) of metals has been a subject of research for several decades. With this technique, capability to produce precise components featuring complex geometries, all while minimizing material waste can be achieved. Magnesium (Mg) and its alloys are particularly promising for lightweight construction due to their high specific strength. However, Mg shows high reactivity and susceptibility to rapid oxidation which presents significant challenges. Additionally, its low hardness severely limits its suitability for wear-intensive applications. Therefore, surface protection is necessary to enable additively manufactured Mg components to perform effectively in highly corrosive environments and demanding tribological applications.

PEO (Plasma Electrolytical Oxidation) of light metals is an environmentally friendly and sustainable surface technology using low alkaline electrolytes. PEO surfaces are known to exhibit superior tribological and high corrosion protection in comparison to other surface techniques on light metals.

To tap the full lightweight potential of additively manufactured Mg alloys, samples produced using laser-based powder bed fusion of metals (PBF-LB/M) were refined through the ULTRACERAMIC® PEO process. The resulting PEO-treated surfaces on fabricated Mg alloy WE43 specimens (produced by Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. ), were subjected to various tribological and corrosion tests. Resulting surfaces were analyzed using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS). Tribological testing was conducted using a pin-on-disc tribometer with tungsten carbide ball as counter body. Initial wear studies revealed remarkable results, showing minimal to no surface wear on the PEO-treated surfaces even under extreme loading conditions. Specifically, the wear volume of the PEO-treated surfaces was approximately 1,000x lower compared to unprotected additively manufactured Mg surfaces. Additionally, the samples underwent extensive corrosion testing in highly corrosive environments for durations ranging from 1 hour to 7 days, during which the PEO-protected surfaces demonstrated exceptional corrosion protection for the additively manufactured Mg samples.

Concluding, optimized PEO surfaces will be presented within this talk, which are adopted to complex 3D manufactured geometries, thus, extending the possibilities of applications in lightweight industry.

Authors would like to thank funding provided under KK5311902FF1 by Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Actions.