Epoxy composite coating with excellent anticorrosion and self-healing properties based on acrylate copolymers

Epoxy resin is an important material used in anticorrosive metal coatings. However, due to the requirements of harsh environments, improving the anticorrosion performance of epoxy resin is increasingly challenging. In this article, acrylate copolymers were successfully prepared by simple radical polymerization and further used as functional fillers to prepare epoxy composite coatings. The acrylate copolymer not only improved the tightness, adhesion, hydrophobicity and weatherability of the coating but also endowed the coating with strong self-healing characteristics through its hydrogen bond network so that the coating could heal itself in water without other external factors. The low-frequency impedance of the acrylate copolymer/epoxy composite coating was 7.24 × 10 8 Ω cm 2 after it was soaked in a 3.5 wt% NaCl solution for 720 h; this impedance was 5 orders of magnitude higher than that of the pure epoxy coating. The strategy used to design this polymer material can be used to prepare excellent anticorrosion coatings with strong self-healing functions. • Acrylate copolymers were successfully synthesized by free radical polymerization. • The addition of acrylate polymer improved the hydrophobicity, adhesion and weather fastness of the epoxy coatings. • ǀ Z ǀ 0.01 Hz (720 h) increased by 5 orders of magnitude due to the addition of the acrylate copolymer. • The acrylate copolymer was confirmed by molecular dynamics analysis to have hydrogen bond self-healing characteristics.