High adhesive and mechanically stable SR/PU IPNs coating with dual-functional antifouling/anticorrosive performances
Mingyao Gao, Jie Zhao, Ge Wang, Huichao Jin, Jianfu Wang, Limei Tian
Abstract
Silicone rubber (SR) based coatings with remarkable antifouling performances have received tremendous interests due to their prominent merits of environmental adaptability, stability, non-toxicity. However, it still remains a great challenge to fabricate SR-based antifouling coatings with both high mechanical properties for the bulk coating and high adhesion properties to substrates. Herein, a dual-functional SR-based coating with both antifouling and anticorrosive performances was developed by incorporating polyurethane (PU) chains into the SR framework to form SR/PU interpenetrating polymer networks (SR/PU IPNs), to maintain its high adhesion to metal substrate without compromising surface antifouling properties. By adjusting the mass ratio of SR and PU components, the adhesion of the SR/PU IPNs to the substrate as well as its mechanical properties can be remarkably improved. Compared with the pristine SR, the SR/PU 75 IPNs possessed the optimized mechanical properties, with the increases in the Young's modulus and compression modulus, by ~312 % and ~289 % respectively. Additionally, the adhesion strength of the composite was increased by 369 %. Owing to the synergistic effect of SR/PU IPNs, the SR/PU 75 IPNs realized synchronous enhancement of antifouling and anticorrosion performance. After 28-day immersion in 3.5 % NaCl solution, the SR/PU 75 IPNs coating was tightly bonded with the substrate, and exhibited a maximum |Z| 0.01Hz value of 1.254 × 10 8 Ω·cm 2 .This proposed dual-functional SR/PU IPNs coating may provide a novel strategy for the future development of marine instruments and equipment, where both strong mechanical performances and high antifouling/anticorrosion performances are acquired.