Fabrication of silica-decorated graphene oxide nanohybrids and the properties of composite epoxy coatings research

Abstract

With the purpose of preparing anticorrosive coatings, solvent-based epoxy resins often serve as raw material. Unfortunately, plentiful micro-pores are fabricated via solvent evaporation in the resin⿿ curing process, which is an intrinsic shortcoming and it is thus necessary to obstacle their micro-pore for enhancing antiseptic property. To reduce the intrinsic defect and increase the corrosion resistance of coating, we synthesize a series of SiO2⿿GO hybrids through anchoring silica (SiO2) on graphene oxide (GO) sheets with the help of 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane and 3-glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane, and disperse the hybrids into epoxy resin at a low weight fraction of 2%. Furthermore, we investigate the appropriate preparation proportion of SiO2⿿GO hybrids (namely: SiO2⿿GO (1:5)). The electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) test and coatings⿿ morphology monitoring in corrosion process reveal that the anticorrosive performance of epoxy coatings is significantly enhanced by incorporation of SiO2⿿GO (1:5) hybrids to epoxy compared with neat epoxy and other nanofillers including SiO2 or GO at the same contents. The superiority of the SiO2⿿GO (1:5) hybrids is related to their excellent dispersion in resin and sheet-like structure.