Facile Synthesis of Smart Nanocontainers as Key Components for Construction of Self-Healing Coating with Superhydrophobic Surfaces.
SiO2-imidazoline nanocomposites (SiO2-IMI) owning high loading capacity of corrosion inhibitor, 1-hexadecyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide (HMID), and a special acid/alkali dual-stimuli-accelerated release property have been synthesized via a one-step modified Stöber method. SiO2-IMI were uniformly distributed into the hydrophobic SiO2 sol to construct "host"-"guest" feedback active coating with a superhydrophobic surface (SiO2-IMI@SHSC) on aluminium alloy, AA2024, by dip-coating technique. SiO2-IMI as "guest" components have good compatibility with "host" sol-gel coating, and more importantly, once localized corrosion occurs on the surface of AA2024, SiO2-IMI can simultaneously respond to the increase in environmental pH around corrosive micro-cathodic regions and decrease in pH near micro-anodic regions, promptly releasing HMID to form a compact molecular film on the damaged surface, inhibiting corrosion spread and executing a self-healing function. The scanning vibrating electrode technique (SVET) was applied to illustrate the suppression process of cathodic/anodic corrosion activities. Furthermore, benefiting from the superhydrophobic surface, SiO2-IMI@SHSC remained its protective ability after immersion in 0.5 M NaCl solution for 35 days, which is far superior to the conventional sol-gel coating with the same coating thickness. The facile fabrication method of SiO2-IMI simplifies the construction procedure of SiO2-IMI@SHSC, which have great potential to replace non-environmental chromate conversion coatings for practical use.
Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Chemical Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of Environmental and Biological Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094, People's Republic of China.
Yi
Y
Liang
School of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094, People's Republic of China.
MingDong
M
Wang
School of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094, People's Republic of China.
Cheng
C
Wang
School of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094, People's Republic of China.
Jing
J
Feng
Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Chemical Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of Environmental and Biological Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094, People's Republic of China.
JianSheng
J
Li
Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Chemical Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of Environmental and Biological Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094, People's Republic of China.
LianJun
L
Wang
Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Chemical Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of Environmental and Biological Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094, People's Republic of China. fujiajun668@gmail.com.|School of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094, People's Republic of China. fujiajun668@gmail.com.
JiaJun
J
Fu
Acid/alkali dual-stimuli-accelerated release; Self-healing; SiO2-imidazoline nanocomposites; Superhydrophobic surface