CARBCOATPRO

The CARBCOATPRO project aims at developing innovative environmentally friendly anticorrosive pre-treatment, primers and top coatings to improve radically the long-term performance of metallic substrates.

The project:

CARBCOATPRO project focuses on the development of functionalized polyhedral oligosilsesquioxane (POSS) based coatings. These formulations will be modified by the incorporation of multifunctional layered double hydroxide (LDH)/carbon nanotube (CNT) additives, which will contain corrosion inhibitors and other additives.

The main targeted functionalities of the new additives and coatings are primarily to enhance mechanical reinforcement, hydrophobicity, antimicrobial properties and both passive and active protection against corrosive damage. The later functionality will be introduced via ion-exchange incorporation of corrosion inhibitors within LDH structures grown directly on the CNT structures. The activation of the anticorrosion functionality on demand will be achieved utilising intrinsic “smart” release properties of LDHs (i.e. self-healing ability) under various external triggers such as presence of corrosive anions. Combination of disciplines like corrosion, chemistry and colloidal science with coating technology will be a main aspect in this project.

Currently, anticorrosion paint systems are commonly supplemented with different additives to yield different functionalities. A major challenge caused by solubility differences between additives in solvent-based paint formulations is to obtain a uniform dispersion that can affect drastically the anticorrosion performance. This opens an opportunity for the production of new multifunctional additives by cost-effective processing and assembly steps to be considered in the corrosion protection of high-performance structures. CARBCOATPRO focuses on three main applications, namely automotive, building and aeronautical. The active LDH/CNT coatings can bring significant benefits when applied in these situations. The following metallic substrates will be considered in the project: Al and Al alloys for the three applications; metallized acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) as a main material for automobiles.

The main benefit is to develop innovative coatings for corrosion-prevention of metallic structures, having self-healing ability and being environmentally friendly. This opens new opportunities for new anticorrosive coating formulations, which will be much more competitive than those currently applied such as chromate-based, tartaric sulphuric acid anodising (TSA) and plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO) treatments. These new hybrid coatings will enable versatile and tailor-made anticorrosive properties with excellent performance, far beyond those with individual LDH additives. It is expected to achieve the development of prototype protection system for the three applications that are environmentally benign with respect to strong future international health regulations and exceed the technical requirements of currently applied solutions with acceptable costs.

Partnership:

The consortium of CARBCOATPRPO project comprises 4 organisations from three different countries: Norway (SINTEF and HYDRO ALUMINIUM),Portugal (SMALLMATEK) and Spain (MAIER). SINTEF Research Centre leaded expert in the development of sol-gel coatings leaded and coordinated the consortium.CIDETEC enters into the consortium as a research Centre subcontracted by MAIER.

Our role:

The role of CIDETEC in CARBCOATPRO is the optimization of surface activation processes, characterization of the developed coatings and the pilot plant scaling-up of the processes related to protection of ABS-Cu and ABS-Cr. CIDETEC also tested and validated some coatings developed for the protection of aluminium.