Slippery lubricant-infused intertwining superhydrophobic matrix: preparation and enhanced resistance against abiotic corrosion and microbiologically influenced corrosion

Abstract

The corrosion of carbon steel (CS) is a disastrous threat to artificial engineering in harsh environments, such as underground mines and seawater environments. Herein, we employed facile one-step electrodeposition to prepare a superhydrophobic intertwining structure on a CS surface in an effort to alleviate corrosion. Sophisticated characterization methods suggested that La tetradecanoate formed during the electrodeposition process via an electrochemical reduction reaction. Silicone lubricant acted as the insoluble phase and was infused into the superhydrophobic matrix to yield a biomimetic slippery lubricant-infused surface (LIS) due to the capillary effect from the superhydrophobic intertwining structure to the lubricant phase. Using natural seawater, salt spray and sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) suspension as the harsh media, LIS shows excellent corrosion resistance to the underlying metal compared with bare CS and the superhydrophobic surface covering CS because the oil phase acts as a barrier to inhibit the penetration of corrosive species. For the LIS sample after seawater immersion for 20 d, the I_corr was approximately 2 orders of magnitude smaller than that of the bare CS. In addition, after a 5.0 wt% salt spray test for 20 d, the |Z|_0.01 Hz of the LIS surface was ca. 3 orders of magnitude larger than that of CS. Furthermore, when immersed in an extremely harsh SRB suspension for 15 d, the |Z|_0.01 Hz of LIS was ca. 3 orders of magnitude larger than that of bare CS because LIS can dually prohibit the bioattachment of SRB and avoid the penetration of the highly corrosive metabolite. Thus, the LIS was proven to have prominent anticorrosion properties in harsh corrosive environments.