The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project is in bringing the next generation of anticorrosion paints to market, with higher protection efficiency and greater environmental friendliness than the current anticorrosion paints. The direct cost of corrosion accounts for 3-5% of a country's GDP worldwide. To reduce the huge economic lost, it is highly desirable to develop more effective anticorrosion technologies. The most effective anticorrosion pigments in use today are heavy metal pigments, such as chromates, lead compounds, and zinc/zinc compounds. Environmental, health, and safety concerns are driving the elimination of heavy metal pigments. The coating is based on conductive polymer dispersion. The use of conductive polymers has opened up a range of new applications. But the poor processibility of conductive polymers has stymied the growth of applications such as electrostatic dissipation, electromagnetic interference shielding, static resistant fibers, conductive inks, toners, and adhesives, etc. Successful development of conductive polymer dispersion in this project may also enable these broader applications of conductive polymers.
Corrosion of metals is an electrochemical reaction process that produces both cations and anions, and accelerates by the aggressive anions in the environment. Generally it is assumed that organic coatings act as barriers to water and oxygen at the coating - environment interface. We have determined that the limiting factor in barrier coatings is their resistance to the ionic current. The present proposal suggests developing a heavy metal free ion barrier anticorrosion coating system: conductive polymer nano-particle pigmented epoxy primer with a topcoat. The combination of the primer and topcoat constructs a barrier to both anions and cations, that inhibits the electrochemical corrosion reaction, therefore, provides efficient corrosion protection to the metal. If present proposed research succeeds, it will demonstrate how an ion barrier coating works, and how to formulate an ion barrier anticorrosion coating, and lead to the next generation of anticorrosion coating - the ion barrier anticorrosion coatings.
