A multilayered smart epoxy coating for corrosion prevention
of
carbon steel was developed and characterized. Toward this direction,
as a first step, zinc-aluminum nitrate-layered double hydroxide (Zn/Al
LDH) was synthesized using the hydrothermal crystallization technique
and then loaded with dodecylamine (DOD), which was used as an inhibitor
(pH-sensitive). Similarly, the synthesis of the urea-formaldehyde
microcapsules (UFMCs) has been carried out using the in-situ polymerization
method, and then the microcapsules (LAUFCs) were encapsulated with
linalyl acetate (LA) as a self-healing agent. Finally, the loaded
Zn/Al LDH (3 wt %) and modified LAUFCs (5 wt %) were reinforced into
an epoxy matrix to develop a double-layer coating (DL-EP). For an
exact comparison, pre-layer epoxy coatings comprising 3 wt % of the
loaded Zn/Al LDH (referred to as LDH-EP), top-layer epoxy coatings
comprising 5 wt % linalyl acetate urea-formaldehyde microcapsules
(referred to as UFMLA COAT), and a blank epoxy coating (reference
coating) were also developed. The developed epoxy coatings were characterized
using various techniques such as XRD, XPS, BET, TGA, FTIR, EIS, etc.
Electrochemical tests performed on the synthesized coatings indicate
that the DL-EP demonstrates improved self-healing properties compared
to LDH-EP and UFMLA COAT.