Study on the superhydrophobic coatings with antifouling and anticorrosion properties

Abstract

The corrosion caused by marine organisms adhering to the wall surface is one of the main reasons for the failure of ships and equipment, and leads to shortened life and increased maintenance costs, and this has seriously affected the development of the national economy. Therefore, it is very important to develop a new composite material to protect the metal substrate from biological corrosion. In this article, a superhydrophobic surface was prepared by simply spraying silicone rubber emulsion containing hydrophobic SiO2 nanoparticles onto a graphene silicone rubber (GSR) pre-coated substrate (SiO2-GSR). The antifouling ability was investigated under laboratory conditions and real marine environments, and the results show that the SiO2-GSR coating has good antiadhesion effect and longer antifouling ability. The anticorrosion performance was evaluated by electrochemistry methods, and the SiO2-GSR has good corrosion resistance ability. Additionally, the SiO2-GSR film still exhibited a strong antifouling and anticorrosion ability after immersed in marine environment for 6 months. Therefore, SiO2-GSR can be applied to the maritime field as an effective antifouling and anticorrosion coating.