Functionalized graphene oxide-epoxy phenolic novolac nanocomposite: an efficient anticorrosion coating on mild steel in saline medium

The present paper reports the fabrication of efficient anticorrosion coating material on mild steel using epoxy phenolic novolac (EPN) polymer. The EPN was prepared by refluxing the mixture of phenol formaldehyde amine and epoxy in a 1:1 weight ratio and characterized by H-1 NMR and FT-IR spectral studies. The graphene oxide (GO) was functionalized using 2-{4-[2-hydroxy-3-(propan-2-ylamino) propoxy] phenyl} acetamide and thoroughly characterized by FT-IR, Raman, and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopies and TEM techniques. The anticorrosion performance of the coated mild steel (MS) samples was studied by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and potentiodynamic polarization techniques in 3.5 wt% NaCl medium. The results revealed that the anticorrosion ability of EPN coating was significantly enhanced by the incorporation of functionalized graphene oxide (FGO). The corrosion inhibition efficiency of 99.99% is achieved with 0.2 wt% FGO-grafted EPN matrix. Graphical abstract