Polyacrylic acid/Ca nanoparticles hybrid hydrosol: Synthesis, characterization and application in pretreatment layer

Abstract

Pretreatment layers have attracted much attention due to their irreplaceable role in paint system. However, the commonly used pretreatment layers face with one common problem, which the environmental friendliness and excellent properties can not be simultaneous realization. This work reported one facile method to synthesize one stable polyacrylic acid/Ca nanoparticles hybrid hydrosol through the electrostatic interaction between polyacrylic acid and Ca2+. Ulteriorly, the fabricated stable hydrosol was utilized as one environmentally friendly pretreatment layer material to fabricate new generation pretreatment layer on cold-roll steel surface through immersion method. The electrochemical and microstructure results indicated that the polyacrylic acid/Ca hybrid hydrosol based pretreatment layer exhibited better anti-corrosion performance and higher root mean square roughness value than polyacrylic acid layer. Meanwhile, neutral salt spray test results reflected that the polyacrylic acid/Ca hybrid pretreatment layer based coating system exhibited better service performance than the no pretreatment or polyacrylic acid layer based coating system. Because of the environmental friendliness, good anti-corrosion performance and higher root mean square roughness value, the polyacrylic acid/Ca nanoparticles hybrid hydrosol based pretreatment layer are expected to act as substitutes for chromate and phosphate conversion layers and will find widespread application in metal surface pretreatment field.