Study on electrical conductivity, corrosion resistance and low-temperature mechanical properties of polyaniline-based waterborne epoxy resin coatings

Abstract

Traditional anti-corrosion coatings are prone to cracking and suffer from poor low-temperature resistance and electrical conductivity. In this study, reduced graphene oxide/polyaniline hybrid fillers were synthesized via in-situ polymerization and then incorporated into waterborne epoxy resin to fabricate composite coatings with both conductive and anti-corrosion properties. Compared with the pure WEP coating, the rGO/PANI/WEP composite coating exhibited greatly improved conductivity and corrosion resistance. Its volume resistivity decreased from 6.16×1011 Ω·m to 7.3×10−2 Ω·m, a conductivity of 13.70 S/m, and the corrosion potential positively shifted from −0.761 V to −0.613 V. Under low-temperature conditions, the coating achieved a tensile strength of 2.58 MPa and an elongation at break of 12%, showing excellent low-temperature mechanical stability.