Polyeugenol-gum arabic/graphene oxide composite coating for high performance anticorrosion material

Abstract

The combination of polymers with graphene oxide has become a subject of increasingly deep research in the effort to develop superior anti-corrosion coatings. In an attempt to enhance material resistance to corrosion, this research investigates the potential utilization of merging two polymer substrates which are polyeugenol and arabic gum with graphene oxide as a protective layer in reducing corrosion. Polyeugenol was synthesized using cationic polymerization of eugenol in the presence of BF3 catalyst. While graphene oxide was synthesized using Hummer's method. The composites of polyeugenol-gum arabic/graphene oxide (PE-GA/GO) were obtained using a solution mixing method to obtain dark brown solution and their anticorrosion activity were measured using potentiodinamic polarization, SEM, XRD, and hydrophobicity tests. The combination of two polymers in the polyeugenol-gum arabic/graphene oxide composite-coated copper exhibits corrosion rates nearly ten times lower compared to copper coated with the single polymer of polyeugenol/graphene oxide. The presence of GO could increase anticorrosion ability. The composite exhibits high performance protection against corrosion with the highest protection achieved on composition 1.25% by weight of graphene oxide against the polymer matrix (polyeugenol-gum arabic) with negligible corrosion rate of 4.5 × 10−5 mm/year. There was no excess damage to the results of the SEM surface morphology analysis of composite layers. The XRD characterization showed that coatings using PE-GA/GO composites on copper metal succeeded in preventing corrosive species and inhibiting the formation of corrosion products and the composites showed higher hydrophobicity properties than metals without layers.

Keywords

• Polymer
• Composite
• Drop-casting
• Potentiodynamic polarization
• Tafel plot