Date of Award

Winter 2008

Project Type

Dissertation

Program or Major

Materials Science

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

First Advisor

Yvon Durant

Abstract

Corrosion is the electrochemical process of a metal returning to its lower energy state, the metal oxide. The cost of corrosion is difficult to estimate. One area particularly susceptible to corrosion problems with high maintenance costs is that of the 20,000 tanks existent in the US Naval Fleet. The Navy is sponsoring the development of novel coatings and additives that can be used to decrease the rising corrosion related costs.

This dissertation describes in detail the synthesis of Ion Sequestration Particles (ISP) that when added to the standard MIL-DTL-24441 or potentially another coating system act to enhance the anticorrosion properties of the coating. A solid ion sequestration core material (SISCM) is first produced. The core is then encapsulated in a second stage forming a shell that protects the SISCM sufficiently from the harmful interactions with uncured epoxy based coatings.

ISPs were designed to sequester harmful ions while releasing passivating ions in their place. The passivating ions then migrate to defect sites at the coating interface where they act to inhibit corrosion. The anticorrosion performance of ISPs in epoxy coatings has been demonstrated by both 500 hrs of hot deionized water immersion and 1000 hrs of salt spray exposure (ASTM B117). The best improvements in coating performance are attained with ISP content ranging from 5-10 wt % loading in a coating.

ISPs were designed to limit the transport of harmful ions through the coating. However this work has determined high diffusion coefficients for ions (CI- and PO42-) through the epoxy matrix. Without ISPs, the diffusion coefficient through the MIL-DTL-24441 coating was determined for phosphate to be 1.16x10-7 cm2/s and for chloride to be in the range of 2.7x10-9 to 5.6x10-10 cm2/s. The addition of 5 wt % ISPs to the coating had the effect of decreasing the diffusion coefficient by an average of 25.5%. These results yield the conclusion that the enhanced anticorrosion properties of coatings containing ISPs is more likely due to the passivating effect of the released phosphate ions than due to the ISPs ability to sequester harmful ions.

Download

Share

COinS