Low-temperature plasma polymerization of dicyclopentadiene for anti-corrosion properties

Abstract

We successfully synthesized plasma-polymerized films from a highly crosslinkable monomer, dicyclopentadiene (a norbornene derivative), using a low-temperature plasma process as an anti-corrosion coating for Cu metal plates. Plasma-enhanced deposition of polymer films from a dicyclopentadiene precursor was carried out using radio frequency (13.6 MHz) plasma generation with argon or nitrogen carrier gas and varying the input power (50–200 W). The surfaces of plasma-polymers synthesized using an argon carrier gas were more hydrophobic than those prepared with a nitrogen carrier gas, which can be attributed to the formation of CNCHx bonds due to nitrogen dissociation. The inhibition efficiency (IE) for Cu corrosion was estimated from potentiodynamic polarization curves to be enhanced up to ∼93%, which was proportional to the input power in the polymer synthesis. Interestingly, when using a nitrogen carrier gas, the plasma-polymerized films showed shifts of the corrosion potential to negative values. We suspect that nitrogen insertion into the films may result in polarization between nitrogen and copper atoms.