Effect of cross linking degree and adhesion force on the anti-corrosion performance of epoxy coatings under simulated deep sea environment

Deep sea exploitation represents the future direction for its abundant resources, while organic coatings can play a very important role in ocean engineering for corrosion protection. In this paper, under simulated deep sea environment in the laboratory, the effect of the crosslink density and the adhesion force of the coatings on the anti-corrosion performance of two different types of epoxy coatings was studied by using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and adhesion test. The results showed that the deterioration of coatings' property of corrosion protection under simulated deep sea environment was much faster than that of under normal pressured seawater. However, the diffusion velocity of water molecule through epoxy coatings decreased with increasing of the crosslink density and the adhesion force of the coatings. Therefore, the capability of corrosion protection could be improved by increasing the density of crosslink of the coatings within some extent and by increasing the adhesion force of the coatings. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.