News Coatings Technologies
Electron-beam cured PANI–MIO coating delivers combined active and passive corrosion protection
A solvent-free electron beam curing process enables highly effective anticorrosion coatings based on polyaniline and micaceous iron oxide. The combination of active and passive protection mechanisms significantly enhances long-term performance.
Developing efficient, solvent-free anticorrosion coatings that cure rapidly under ambient conditions remains a key challenge. This study presents a novel electron-beam (EB) cured coating that achieves complete curing within seconds at room temperature, without the use of organic solvents.
Polyaniline-modified micaceous iron oxide (PANI–MIO) was employed as the functional anticorrosive filler, prepared via in-situ polymerisation on the MIO surface. Polyaniline provides active corrosion inhibition, while the lamellar MIO pigment forms a passive barrier that slows the ingress of corrosive species.
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Excellent long-term protection and damage tolerance
The synergistic “active + passive” mechanism resulted in a pronounced improvement in corrosion resistance. Under optimal conditions, the low-frequency impedance remained above 10⁹ Ω cm² after forty-five days of immersion in NaCl solution, approximately two orders of magnitude higher than that of the neat resin coating. The corrosion protection efficiency approached 96 %, roughly twice that of conventional MIO coatings.
Even when intentionally damaged, the EB-cured coatings showed strong resistance to corrosion spread. After six hundred hours of neutral salt spray testing, no significant corrosion propagation was observed at the scratch. The study therefore establishes a benchmark for electron-beam curing technologies in metal corrosion protection.
Source: Zhou, J., Wei, Z., Liu, R. & Luo, J., Corrosion-resistant polyaniline-micaceous iron oxide coating by ambient and solvent-free electron beam curing. Journal of Coatings Technology and Research 22, 2325–2337 (2025).
