Superhydrophobic and corrosion behavior of electrospun PVDF-ZnO coating

Abstract

Corrosion is of considerable concern whenever metals and alloys are used in constructions, petroleum and gas pipelines. The present article was undertaken to investigate the hydrophobicity and corrosion resistance of PVDF polymer with and without ZnO nanoparticles using the electrospinning process. Contact angle measurements, scanning electron microscopy, SEM, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, FTIR and atomic force microscopy, AFM, were used to characterize the surface. The corrosion resistance of the superhydrophobic surface formed on aluminum sheet was investigated by the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements and Tafel polarization. The results show that stable superhydrophobic PVDF-ZnO coating can be fabricated on aluminum substrate with water contact angle more than 155±2 ° and contact angle hysteresis of 4.5 ±2 °. The EIS and Tafel measurements and appropriate equivalent circuit models revealed that the prepared superhydrophobic PVDF/ZnO coating has the highest corrosion resistance compared with the bare Al and the PVDF- coated Al.