Thermal treatment of (TiZr)N coatings on CO2‐controlled atmosphere

Currently, studies about the CO2 gas injection improve the production efficiency of crude oil. The surface interaction between CO2 and thin films is a large area of research in the scientific community. In this work, we are showing that The TiZrN (coating) + Si (substrate) system immersed on environments of fully CO2 can interact to below 400°C temperature, because the TiZrN (coating) + Si (substrate) system is broken to temperatures above of the 400°C. The Ti2p, Zr3d, N1s, O1s, and C1s narrow spectra are shown, which illustrate the evolution of TiZrN to TiNx, TiOx, and TiONx compounds and afterwards to TiO2 and ZrO2 phases. TiNx, TiOx, and TiONx compounds are responsible for the increase of the micro‐hardness (measured through Vickers Hardness Testing) of the system (TiZrN [coating] + Si [substrate]) due to that are found at 400°C thermal treatment. Topographical images obtained by atomic force microscopy showed an increase of the surface roughness due to the thermal treatment. Scanning electron microscopy demonstrated that sample submit to 600°C temperature suffered fracture with small indentations.