Investigation of corrosion protection performance of epoxy coatings modified by ZnO-Cr2O3 nanocomposites on mild steel surfaces

In this study, ZnO-Cr2O3/epoxy nanocomposites are employed to protect mild steel corrosion in 3.5% NaCl solution. The corrosion performances of the nanocomposites coatings were evaluated by using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and potentiodynamic polarization measurements. Electrochemical measurements show that ZnO-Cr2O3 nanocomposite coated has good inhibitive properties with PE% of ~99% at 0.04 gr/L concentration on mild steel corrosion in 3.5% NaCl solution. The results indicated that the incorporation of ZnO-Cr2O3 nanoparticle into epoxy resin coating significantly decrease the corrosion current as well as the hardness of epoxy coatings. ZnO-Cr2O3 nanoparticle are able to cure the defect in epoxy resin and prevent the diffusion of corrosive electrolyte to mild steel substrate.