Considering the effect of graphene loading in water-based epoxy coatings
In a recently published paper, researchers investigated the effect of graphene as a potential additive for anticorrosive organic coatings.
Recently, graphene has gained increasing interest in numerous fields of application and, in particular, it has been used as a nanofiller in the preparation of polymeric composites to improve their mechanical and transport properties. However, the effect of graphene as a potential additive for anticorrosive organic coatings is not widely studied. In a new work, low levels of graphene nanosheets, 0.5 and 1 wt%, were added to an additive-free waterborne epoxy resin applied to Al2024-T3 aluminum alloy samples.
Improvement of the protective properties
The presence of graphene did not affect the polymerisation process of the resin and the adhesion at coating/substrate interface, as demonstrated by experimental results, while showing a slight effect on coatings wettability. Electrochemical analysis revealed an improvement of the protective properties of the coating that could be assigned to a slow absorption rate of the electrolytes in the polymeric matrix and a lesser amount of absorbed water than the unloaded film.
The Study is published in: Journal of Coatings Technology and Research September 2018, Volume 15, Issue 5, pp 923–931.
Event tip
If you want to learn how corrosion occurs, what types of corrosion are out there and how coatings can prevent it, you should visit the European Coatings Seminar Anticorrosive Coatings in November 2018.
