Designing a corrosion resistance system using modified graphene oxide-epoxy microcapsules for enhancing the adhesion strength of the epoxy coatings

New microencapsulated material with advanced corrosion resistance activity and superior adhesion strength on the steel sample was synthesized by in-situ polymerization. In this process, urea-formaldehyde was used as capsule shell material for encapsulating modified graphene oxide. The formation of microcapsules was effectively evidenced by FT-IR, SEM, and TGA-DSC analyses. Initially, graphene oxide was modified by the adsorption of Catharanthus roseus L. (C.R) leaves extract and characterized by FT-IR, SEM, EDX, and DFT studies. GO-C.R and UF-GO-C.R (microcapsules) were separately impregnated into epoxy resin and fabricated on the steel substrates. The anti-corrosion performance of UF-GO-C.R/Epoxy in comparison with neat GO-C.R/Epoxy coated sample was evaluated by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and salt spray test. Results reveal that UF-GO-C.R microcapsules in epoxy matrix showed the protection efficiency of 83.6 % after the immersion period of 7 days in 3.5 % NaCl solution which was relatively higher than those with neat GO-C.R. In addition, the coating loaded with UF-GO-C.R microcapsules showed improvement in the adhesion of epoxy coatings on the steel surface which was evident from the increase in peel strength (290 N) through peel-off adhesion test.