Super-hydrophobic surfaces improve corrosion resistance of copper in seawater

Pretreated by a n-tetradecanoic acid (CH3(CH2)(12)COOH) etch, the super-hydrophobic film was formed on the fresh copper surface. The film structure was probed with contact angle measurement and scanning electron microscopy(SEM). The results suggest that the structure of the film is similar to haulm or flower and the seawater contact angle is larger than 150 degrees. Moreover, the corrosion resistance of bare and modified samples in seawater were investigated by cyclic voltammograms(CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy(EIS). Experimental results show that the corrosion rate of Cu with super-hydrophobic surface decreases dramatically because of its special microstructure. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.