A highly responsive healing agent for the autonomous repair of anti-corrosion coatings on wet surfaces. In operando assessment of the self-healing process

A methodology to enrich epoxy coatings of an effective self-healing feature on wet surfaces was developed as a further step on for practical corrosion protection issues. To this aim, a polyetheramine was chemically engineered by grafting catechol units and then successfully encapsulated in microcapsules (MCs) to be finally embedded into an epoxy resin deposited on steel panels. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thin-layer chromatography, and 1D and 2D nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy confirmed the successful polyetheramine modification by dopamine units. Different dosages of catechol-modified polyetheramine were encapsulated within poly(styrene-co-acrylonitrile) shell via electrospray method to study the influence of dopamine grafting on the healing performance. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis revealed the formation of the spherical MCs, while FTIR and TGA analyses confirmed the successful encapsulation. The highly responsive self-healing coatings were then prepared by embedding amine- and isocyanate-containing MCs (1:1 weight ratio; 3 wt% overall) as a dual-capsule system exploiting the polyurea formation as a fast healing reaction. In operando electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) tests were employed to study the underwater self-healing performance. According to the EIS results, monotonically increasing variation with time of the charge transfer resistance was correlated with a fast and effective underwater self-healing performance for the sample using 40 wt% of a catechol-modified healing agent. Such results, combined with others including SEM investigation on the underwater healed samples, point to an improved adhesion of the growing dopamine-bearing polymer to both underlying metal and epoxy edges of the scratch.