Rubber Iron Research Articles

Dual-Mode Carbon Aerogel/Iron Rubber Sensor.

Nowadays, the integration of easy production, simple structure, high sensitivity, and multifunctionality is the developing tendency for flexible sensors. Herein we report a facile manufacture of a highly flexible, sensitive, and multifunctional dual-mode sensor with an ultrasimple structure by directly attaching magnetic iron rubber (IR) onto the surface of carbon aerogel (CA) derived from melamine foam. The dual-mode CA/IR sensor exhibits high sensitivities of 5.6 kPa-1 and 1.6·10-3 Oe-1, respectively, toward pressure and magnetic field in a wide frequency ranging from 0.1 to 10 Hz, which are higher than those of the existing flexible pressure/magnetism sensors. The multifunctionality of the dual-mode CA/IR sensor is demonstrated by monitoring blood pulse, human breath, balloon volume, and thoracic volume via pressure and magnetism sensing or their combination. Due to its simple structure and high sensitivities, the dual-mode sensor is employed as the building block to create a direction-recognizable sensor for identifying the directions of pressure and magnetic field for the awareness of surrounding barriers that are of practical importance in sophisticated situations such as autonomous artificial intelligence, autodriving and robotics, and so on.

Application of EIS and SEM to Study the Corrosion Behaviors of Organic Coatings/Substrate System

Electrochemical corrosion behaviors of two common-used ship coatings——epoxy aluminum coating, chloride rubber iron red coating and their composite coatings immersed in 3.5%NaCl solution were investigated using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy combined with open circuit potential measurements and SEM micrograph analysis. Potential-time result indicates that the free corrosion potential of these three coatings with immersion time are more positive than that of metal substrate, which can serve as barrier layer to protect metal substrate from corrosion. During the course of immersion, increasingly negative shift potentials with time reveal the growth of electrochemical area of anode and corrosion takes place continuously. EIS shows that corrosive species can penetrate into coatings and reach the coating/substrate interface promptly, causing the decrease of its shielding role and the beginning of electrochemical corrosion. SEM micrographs suggest that coatings were compact and continuous compared with obviously coarse and loose after corrosion, indicating the penetration of corrosive species destroys cross linkage of coatings. Composite coatings present better protection performance, displaying the effect of “1+1>2” remarkably.