Corrosion has been a perennial issue of concern for the steel industry. Chromate conversion coatings are well known pre-treatment coatings for steel but due to environmental concerns and legislations, their use has been restricted. The industrial community, pegged by these legislations, has been long demanding an economically viable and eco-friendly pre-treatment coating alternative, without having to compromise on the durability and corrosion performance of the overall coating system. The present study focuses on evaluation of graphene as an anticorrosive alternative to Cr(VI) based coatings. Graphene, produced by a high shear liquid exfoliation route, upon functionalisation, provides a conductive and nearly impermeable barrier coating. On electrochemical and coating performance evaluation of this coating system, a dramatic improvement in corrosion resistance is observed. The study confirms the environment friendly corrosion protection of steel using functionalised graphene coating.

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The present study was focused on the development of environmentally friendly graphene-based anticorrosive coatings and understanding the effect of these coatings on the electrochemical corrosion behavior of copper. Through effective functionalization of graphene (<¼5 layers) with 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES), the corrosion current density was reduced by $20 times in magnitude as compared to that of the uncoated copper. This enhanced corrosion protection is attributed to the high surface area of graphene, electrochemically produced highly conductive few layer graphene, its barrier properties, reduced water uptake/oxygen/salt permeation, and homogeneous dispersion of graphene throughout the coating.

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Integrating dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) with a building’s architecture is required for its commercialization. Coupling semitransparent designer DSSCs with windows has the dual benefit of providing daylighting and power generation. To achieve this, we report a low-cost, novel, high-pressure exfoliation technique for graphene and utilize it as a transparent counter electrode for fabrication of semitransparent DSSCs. By adopting environmentally friendly and economic exfoliated graphene instead of conventional platinum, the overall device cost comes down. The electrocatalytic behavior of fabricated transparent graphene counter electrode was assessed using cyclic voltammetry, Tafel plot in symmetry cell configuration, and impedance spectroscopy. We have fabricated DSSC with >70% transmittance in the visible spectrum, which gives promising power conversion efficiency of 3.19%. The fabricated cells were stable for more than 500 h under constant illumination with no significant efficiency drop. Also, we have fabricated designer semitransparent DSSCs using various symbols.