Polymer Bulletin, Vol.73, No.6, 1595-1605, 2016
PANI/SBR composites as anticorrosive coatings for carbon steel I. Chemical, morphological and superficial characterization
Research of conducting polymer composites has opened a wide array of possibilities to get high performance organic anticorrosive coatings, minimizing the environmental and health impact involved in many current protection systems. Polyaniline (PAni) is one of most studied conducting polymer, for different reasons, among easy processing from solutions into films, reversibly controlled electrical and optical properties. However, its mechanical and adhesion properties are poor. A path to improve PAni properties is to use an elastomer as insulating polymer matrix, as styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR). In this work, a composite from doped PAni and SBR was obtained by solution casting method, the effect of the conducting polymer/elastomer ratio and the PAni doping anion on the chemical nature and morphology of PAni/SBR composites has been studied to determine the feasibility of their application as anticorrosive coatings for carbon steel. Chemical characterization, by means of infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and RAMAN spectroscopy, was also carried out, the presence of signals attributed to doping anion was identified in composites, also formation of ion oxides such as magnetite, hematite and maghemite were identified. Morphology of composites was obtained by means of optical and scanning electron microscopy, and allows to observe the presence of agglomerates in composites.