A facile approach to fabricating graphene/waterborne epoxy coatings with dual functionalities of barrier and corrosion inhibitor

A facile and environmentally-friendly method is developed to prepare graphene/waterborne epoxy(WEP)composite coatings.The graphene nanosheets are produced with electrochemical-exfoliation in the solution containing surfactants,cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide(CTAB)and sodium dodecyl sulfate(SDS).The nanosheets containing solution thus formed are subjected to a quick dialysis and then directly used as a diluent for WEP without any further treatment.This preparation method overcomes the commonly identified problems of aggregations and‘corrosion promotion’effect associated with graphene,and increases the impedance of the composite coatings by more than two orders of magnitude.The analysis of anticorrosion performance suggested that the presence of surfactants not only improves the dispersibility of graphene nanosheets but also endows the composite coatings with both barrier and corrosion inhibition capabilities.The strategy reported herein may pave the path to the large-scale production of graphene anticorrosion coatings.

Balancing the corrosion resistance and through-plane electrical conductivity of Cr coating via oxygen plasma treatment

Developing an electrically conductive and corrosion-resistant coating is essential for metal bipolar plates of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells(PEMFCs). Although enhanced corrosion resistance was seen for Cr coated stainless steel(Cr/SS) bipolar plates, they experience a quick decrease of through-plane electrical conductivity due to the formation of a porous and low-conductive corrosion product layer at the plate surface, thus leading to an increase in interfacial contact resistance(ICR). To tackle this issue, the multilayer Cr coatings were deposited using the magnetron sputtering with a remote inductively coupled oxygen plasma(O-ICP) in the present study. After the O-ICP treatment, a Cr oxide layer(Cr O*) is formed on the specimen surface. The Cr O*/Cr/SS has a remarkably lower stable corrosion rate(iss) than that of the native Cr oxides(Cr On/Cr/SS). Compared with Cr On/Cr/SS, the excellent performance of Cr O*/Cr/SS is attributed to a denser and thicker surface layer of Cr O* with Cr being oxidized to its highest valence state,Cr(VI). More importantly, the through-plane electrical conductivity of the specimens treated by the optimized O-ICP decreases much slowly than Cr On/Cr/SS and thus, the increament of ICR of Cr O*/Cr/SS after the potentiostatic polarization test is considerably smaller than that of Cr On/Cr/SS, which is benefited from the reduced issthat mitigates the deposition of corrosion products and hinders further oxidation of Cr coating. Therefore, Cr O*/Cr/SS proves to be a well balanced trade-off between corrosion resistance and through-plane electrical conductivity. The results of this study demonstrate that O-ICP treatment on a conductive metal coating is an effective strategy to improve the corrosion resistance and suppress the increase of ICR over the long-term polarization. The technique reported herein exhibits its promising potential application in preparing corrosion resistant and electrically conductive coatings on metal bipolar plates to be used in PEMFCs.