Smart self-repairing protective coatings

Nanocontainers with a shell possessing controlled release properties can be used to fabricate a new family of active coatings that can respond quickly to changes in the coating environment or the coating's integrity. The release of corrosion inhibitors encapsulated within nanocontainers is triggered by the corrosion process, which prevents the spontaneous leakage of the corrosion inhibitor out of the coating. Moreover, if different types of nanocontainers loaded with the corresponding active agents are incorporated simultaneously into a coating matrix, the coating can act in several different ways (e.g. antibacterial, anticorrosion and antistatic). This review presents methods for the fabrication of such nanocontainers, how they can encapsulate active material, and their permeability properties.