The corrosion of steel bars is the main reason for the premature failure of reinforced concrete structures, and coating reinforcement is considered to be an effective method to protect steel bars from chloride attack. A recent publication, describes the development of a graphene oxide (GO) modified silane composite coating (isobutyl triethoxysilane combined with tetraethyl orthosilicate) for the corrosion protection of reinforcement bars. The physicochemical characteristics and corrosion resistance performances of mild steel coated with this composite coating was examined by scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric, Raman analyses, and electrochemical measurements.
The results indicated that the coating with a thickness of about 45 µm exhibits substantial corrosion resistance with a maximum protection efficiency of about 99.36% in chloride media. The superior corrosion protection performance is attributed to the formed covalent bonds between GO and silanol, which strengthens the three-dimensional network structure of the coating. In addition, the uniformly distributed GO immensely slows down the degradation of silane coating structure and improves the stability of the coating, and thus delays
the corrosion.
The study was published in Progress in Organic Coatings, Volume 164, March 2022.