An anti-stripping and self-healing micro-arc oxidation/acrylamide gel composite coating on magnesium alloy AZ31

•The PAM gels is a new corrosion-triggered inhibiting structure.•The inhibitor ions Ce4+ could change the morphology of the products film.•The absorption and bridging of PAM gels about the corrosion product. Biomaterial polyacrylamide (PAM) hydrogel was first studied for self-healing coatings of Mg alloys. In this work, a PAM gel with Ce4+ inhibitor was in-situ composited on the surface of micro-arc oxidation treated AZ31 Mg alloy. The results indicated that the scratched samples with the composite coating could avoid pitting corrosions and self-heal in neutral salt spray test (NSST). XPS and SEM-EDS analysis reveal that the self-healing performance was ascribable to the inhibition of Ce4+ and the bridge adsorption of PAM gels. Moreover, the results of open circuit potential and polarization curve indicate that the self-healing product film has good corrosion resistance.