Effect of Fe3O4‐Decorated N‐Doped Reduced Graphene Oxide Nanohybrid on the Anticorrosion Performance of Epoxy Composite Coating

Abstract

AbstractThe present study explores the synergistic effect of Fe3O4 and heteroatom doped reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanohybrid on anti‐corrosion performance of epoxy composite coating. In this connection, Fe3O4 nanoparticles were decorated over nitrogen doped rGO (Fe3O4‐NRG) and characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT‐IR), Raman spectroscopy, X‐ray diffraction (XRD), X‐ray Photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). This approach to modulating the surface properties of graphene and hence the interaction with polymer matrix were quite distinct from traditional surface functionlization or decoration in a sense that the doped nitrogen atom facilitate the growth of Fe3O4 particles and at the same time augmented the interaction of rGO with polymer matrix. The prepared nanohybrid was dispersed in epoxy matrix through mechanical mixing and coated over mild steel surface via spin coating technique. The potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) study revealed superior anti‐corrosion performance of Fe3O4‐NRG/epoxy coating in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution. The corrosion inhibition was found to improve by ∼ 98.5% with 0.5 wt% loading of Fe3O4‐NRG. We believe that this simple solvent free approach to prepare composite coating can be exploit for practical application and thus deserves special attention..