Preparation of an anti-bacterial CuO-containing polyurea-formaldehyde/linseed oil self-healing coating

Abstract

This work focuses on the preparation and characterization of an anti-bacterial self-healing polymeric coating by linseed oil encapsulated in a poly (urea-formaldehyde) shell with CuO addition. The synthesized microcapsules (MCs) were characterized using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis. The corrosion properties of the prepared coatings were investigated by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and potentiodynamic polarization examinations in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution. The results indicated that the corrosion performance of the coating was improved demonstrating that the most elevated corrosion resistance (Icorr =49.5 μA/cm2, Ecorr = −0.56 V) is gotten by adding 15 wt% MCs, and by increasing the MCs concentration improves the corrosion rate while the mechanical properties decrease. In addition, self-healing coatings exhibited efficient antibacterial functioning against Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) due to the release of CuO nanoparticles in the damaged areas. The samples with 4 g/lit of CuO in the healing agent completely inhibited antibacterial activity. Moreover, the copper oxide nanoparticles were more effective against S. aureus bacteria than E. coli