Review of pH and Electrochemical Responsive Materials for Corrosion Control Applications

Abstract Corrosion is a costly problem for military operations and civil industries. While most corrosion initiates from localized corrosion such as pitting, failure directly caused by localized corrosion can be very dangerous, as it is difficult to anticipate and prevent, and often occurs very suddenly. One way of preventing these failures is with a coating that can detect and heal localized corrosion. pH and other electrochemical changes are often associated with localized corrosion, so it is expected that materials that are pH or otherwise electrochemical responsive can be used to detect and control corrosion. This paper will review various pH and electrochemical responsive materials and their potential applications in smart coatings for corrosion control. Current research results in this field will also be reported.