A review on recent advances in graphene oxide-based composite coatings for anticorrosion applications

For the past few decades, graphene-based nanocomposite coatings have attracted much interest from researchers owing to their anti-corrosion applications in aerospace, automotive, chemical, power, defense, electronic, biomedical, textile, steel, petroleum, petrochemical, cement, and construction industries. The chemical stability, thermal stability, and excellent barrier property of graphene are exploited for corrosion protection applications. Graphene-based super-hydrophobic coatings and self-healing coatings are also finding increasing attention owing to their improved corrosion resistance. In composite coatings, the well-distributed modified graphene oxide (GO) inside the polymer matrix provides extra torturous paths for the permeation of corrosive mediums. This paper reviews the recent developments on GO-based coatings on steels and Cu-Ni alloy. Detailed descriptions of case studies of GO-based composite bilayer coating on Cu-Ni alloy specimen, chitosan-silver-GO ternary composite coating on Cu-Ni alloy, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) coating with an interlayer of GO-nano-SiO2 on carbon steel specimens and composite coating of (3-glycidyloxypropyl)trimethoxysilane (GPTMS) with GO on the 316L SS specimens with better corrosion resistance have been discussed. This comprehensive review presents the details and applications of graphene-based composite coatings for corrosion protection. The first part of the review covers graphene, graphene oxide, and reduced graphene oxide-based coatings for passive and active corrosion protection. The second part details epoxy, polyurethane, alkyd, polyetherimide, polyvinyl butyral, and polystyrene-graphene oxide composite coatings on various metallic and alloy substrates and graphene oxide-based super-hydrophobic coatings. A summary of various coatings developed over the years with the key findings is discussed in tables, enabling readers to get a quick picture of the work done so far. Industrial applications of GO-based coatings such as automobile and aerospace industries, oil and gas pipelines, bipolar plates for fuel cells, cathode, anode, and separators of batteries are also reviewed. The final part discusses the conclusions, scope, challenges, and prospects of graphene-based composite coatings for corrosion applications.