Inhibited corrosion-promotion activity of graphene encapsulated in nanosized silicon oxide

Graphene is an excellent one-atom-thick coating for metal protection because it is completely impermeable to gases, vapours and liquids. However, recent studies support that graphene tends to promote metal corrosion at its defects. In this paper, a study on the inhibition of the corrosion-promotion activity of graphene is presented. We encapsulated graphene in nanosized SiO2. Our work reveals that embedding the graphene@SiO2 composites into an anticorrosive coating greatly enhances their corrosion resistance; the SiO2 grown on graphene acts as a spacer separating graphene and metal substrates so as to prevent graphene from connecting with the metal substrates and further inhibit the corrosion-promotion activity of graphene.