Anticorrosive coatings made from polydopamine modified graphitic C3N4 composites with synergistic anticorrosion effects

Since uniform dispersion and robust interfacial compatibility of nanofiller with epoxy resin are the most critical parameters to improve the corrosion protection property, a new effective anticorrosion nanofiller [polydopamine (PDA)@g-C3N4-CeO2] is designed by stacking PDA modified g-C3N4 and nano-CeO2 with the help of a silane coupling agent. The structure and morphology of PDA@g-C3N4-CeO2 are characterized by FTIR, XRD, XPS, SEM, and TEM. Furthermore, the PDA@g-C3N4-CeO2 nanofiller is loaded within waterborne epoxy coating (WEC) and the corrosion resistance of the prepared nanocomposite coating is studied. It can be inferred from the dispersion test that g-C3N4 modified by PDA and nano-CeO2 exhibits excellent dispersion and compatibility in de-ionized water. The Electrochemical impedance spectroscope (EIS) results indicate that nanocomposite coating with PDA@g-C3N4-CeO2 exhibits the best corrosion resistance, and its low-frequency impedance (Zf=0.01Hz) is 1.78 × 109 Ω cm2, which is two orders of magnitude higher than that of pure WEC (4.27 × 107 Ω cm2). In the salt spray test, PDA@g-C3N4-CeO2/WEC also showed excellent long-term corrosion resistance with few corrosion products even after 600 h, which was consistent with the results of the EIS test. In addition, PDA@g-C3N4-CeO2/WEC also reflects the most fantastic adhesion strength (14.22 MPa), which is improved by 45.40% than that of pure WEC (9.78 MPa). Generally, the excellent protection properties of PDA@g-C3N4-CeO2/WEC are attributed to the presence of PDA and KH-550 modified nano-CeO2 on the surface of g-C3N4, which increase the compatibility and surface interactions between nanofillers and epoxy resin.