Improving the anti-corrosive performance of epoxy/zinc composite coatings with N-doped 3D reduced graphene oxide

Three-dimensional reduced graphene oxide (3DRGO) doped with N heteroatoms was innovatively incorporated into a Zn-containing epoxy (EP/Zn) composite coating. Comprehensive investigations that introducing 3DRGO significantly improved the anti-corrosion performance of the coating, and the optimal 3DRGO content was only 0.05 wt%. The effects of both the spatial structure and chemical doping of graphene on the surface protection performance of their EP/Zn coating were revealed for the first time.

Compared with the conventional 2-dimensional reduced GO (RGO) sheets and 3D graphene (3DG) with similar 3D structures, 3DRGO exhibited superior effect on promoting the corrosion resistance of its composite coating. This can be attributed to not only the unique 3D porous strut structure of 3DRGO, but also its N-doping, which plays important roles in increasing its interaction with the epoxy matrix, preventing 3DRGO agglomeration, improving the barrier property of the coating, facilitating the construction of an electrical conduction network between Zn particles, and exploiting the cathodic protection function of Zn more efficiently.

The study has been published in Progress in Organic Coatings, Volume 186, January 2024.