Understanding the influence of water hydrogen bonding on the cathodic delamination rate of coated steel substrates from pre-exposure characterization

Establishing anticorrosive properties of new and modified coating formulations is a time intensive and expensive process. It is therefore desirable to develop methods capable of predicting corrosion performance of new or modified coating formulations from ambient measurements. Our objective was to understand how ambient, pre-exposure water hydrogen bonding affects cathodic delamination. Nano-carbon allotropes were incorporated into a parent epoxy-amine matrix material applied to steel substrates to alter water hydrogen bonding interactions. We validated that water hydrogen bonding distributions at the air/polymer interface were directly related to measured cathodic delamination rates and were useful in predicting experimental cathodic delamination rates.