A novel and green 3-amino-1,2,4-triazole modified graphene oxide nanomaterial for enhancing anti-corrosion performance of water-borne epoxy coatings on mild steel

To give full play to barrier effect of graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets for improving the unsatisfactory long-term anti-corrosion performance of water-borne epoxy (WEP) coating, eco-friendly 3-amino-1,2,4-triazole (ATA) molecules were used to modify GO for enhancing the dispersion of GO in polymer coating. The results gained from Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman and photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) confirm that GO nanosheets were successfully modified with ATA molecules. SEM images show that ATA modification can significantly reinforce the compatibility between GO and polymer coating. The Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) tests result shows that the ATA-GO/WEP coating (4.7 × 105 Ω cm2) has significantly higher |Z|0.1Hz than pure WEP (1.3 × 104 Ω cm2) and GO/WEP (9 × 103 Ω cm2) coatings after 30 days immersion. This indicate that the well-dispersed ATA-GO nanosheets in polymer coating can remarkably enhance coating's barrier effect, leading to significant improvement of anti-corrosion performance. We believe that this strategy could inspire the development of ATA modified inorganic nanomaterials for anti-corrosion coating applications.