Enhancement of barrier and anti-corrosive performance of zinc-rich epoxy coatings using nano-silica/graphene oxide hybrid

Abstract

Abstract This study reports a facile method to prepare silica-coated graphene oxide nanoflakes (SiO2–GO). Results of X-ray diffraction analysis, Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy reveal that silica was successfully coated on the GO flakes. The effect of SiO2–GO nanosheets on the corrosion protection and barrier performance of the epoxy coating was investigated in this work. Results indicate that the mechanical properties of all coatings added with GO and SiO2–GO were significantly improved. Furthermore, electrochemical impedance and Tafer polarisation curves showed that added 0.5 wt% SiO2–GO nanoflakes into zinc-rich epoxy coating could greatly improve the anti-corrosion performance of the sample, and the corrosion protection efficiency increased from 67.01 to 99.58%.