A novel self-healing and removable hexagonal boron nitride/epoxy coating with excellent anti-corrosive property based on Diels-Alder reaction

The coatings which are able to protect the metal from being corroded by the medium in their service life while are easy to be removed when the regular maintenances and refurbishment of the coatings are carried out are in high demand. However, the relevant researches are few. In this article, a novel hexagonal boron nitride/epoxy anti-corrosive coating with self-healing, removable and recycled abilities were designed. These coatings which were totally dynamic cross-linked were synthesized by the Diels-Alder reaction between a modified hexagonal boron nitride with maleimide functional groups and epoxy containing both furan and epoxide functional groups. The structures of the epoxy composites were fully characterized. Their thermal properties, self-healing abilities, and removeable properties were also explored. The systematic study on the anti-corrosive properties of the coatings was carried out. An inhibition efficiency of 97.2 % could be realized by the sample of m-hBN-OH/epoxy98–2, in which 2 % of the cross-linking degree was provided by the functional hBN fillers. All the research results revealed that this novel coating could serve as the long durable anti-corrosive material in its service life while was easy to be removed when the regular refurbishment was conducted.