Enhanced Corrosion Protection of Epoxy/ZnO-NiO Nanocomposite Coatings on Steel

Abstract

ZnO-NiO nanocomposite with epoxy coating on mild steel has been fabricated by the sol–gel assisted method. The synthesized sample was used to study corrosion protection. The analysis was performed by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy in 3.5% NaCl solution. The structural and morphological characterization of the metal oxide nanocomposite was carried out using XRD and SEM with Energy Dispersive Absorption X-ray (EDAX) analysis. XRD reveals the ZnO-NiO (hexagonal and cubic) structure with an average ZnO-NiO crystallite size of 26 nm. SEM/EDAX analysis of the ZnO-NiO nanocomposite confirms that the chemical composition of the samples consists of: Zn (8.96 ± 0.11 wt.%), Ni (10.53 ± 0.19 wt.%) and O (80.51 ± 3.12 wt.%). Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) authenticated that the corrosion resistance has improved for the nanocomposites of ZnO-NiO coated along with epoxy on steel in comparison to that of the pure epoxy-coated steel.