Steel protection via Zn graphene oxide composite coatings
A recent study focuses on electrogalvanisation using Zn-graphene oxide composite coatings with enhanced corrosion resistance performance.
Zn-based coatings are extensively used for the protection of steel structures. Efforts toward further enhancement in the corrosion resistance performance of Zn coatings are therefore an area of continued interest. In the new work, Zn-graphene oxide (Zn-GO) composite coatings containing different volume fractions of GO were electrodeposited on mild steel substrates using an electrolyte bath with different concentrations of dispersed graphene oxide.
Higher corrosion resistance performance
The electrodeposition parameters used yielded compact and crack-free morphology for all the coatings. Incorporation of GO led to a refinement of the Zn crystallites in the coating matrix. Potentiodynamic polarisation measurements clearly showed that all the Zn-GO composite coatings exhibited higher corrosion resistance performance when compared to the pristine Zn coatings, and further, the corrosion rate decreased with the increase in the volume fraction of the GO in the composite coatings.
The study has been published in Journal of Coatings Technology and Research Volume 18, 2021.
