A facile electrodeposition process to fabricate corrosion-resistant superhydrophobic surface on carbon steel

•A facile fabrication of superhydrophobic film was obtained on carbon steel.•Composition of superhydrophobic film is iron palmitate.•The film exhibits excellent chemical stability and good self-cleaning effect.•Corrosion of C45 steel is significantly inhibited with superhydrophobic surface. Superhydrophobic Fe film with hierarchical micro/nano papillae structures is prepared on C45 steel surface by one-step electrochemical method. The superhydrophobic surface was measured with a water contact angle of 160.5±0.5° and a sliding angle of 2±0.5°. The morphology of the fabricated surface film was characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), and the surface structure seems like accumulated hierarchical micro-nano scaled particles. Furthermore, according to the results of Fourier transform infrared spectra (FT-IR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), the chemical composition of surface film was iron complex with organic acid. Besides, the electrochemical measurements showed that the superhydrophobic surface improved the corrosion resistance of carbon steel in 3.5wt.% NaCl solution significantly. The superhydrophobic layer can perform as a barrier and provide a stable air–liquid interface which inhibit penetration of corrosive medium. In addition, the as-prepared steel exhibited an excellent self-cleaning ability that was not favor to the accumulation of contaminants.