Balanced Anti-Corrosion Action of Reduced Graphene Oxide in Zn-Al Coating During Medium-Term Exposure to NaCl Solution

Considering the electronegativity and shielding anti-sepsis characteristic of reduced graphene oxide (G), we design a Zn-Al coating with embedded G (Zn-G/Al) on low-carbon steel using the low-pressure cold spray (LPCS) method. In this method, G-coated Al powders (G/Al) prepared using in situ reduction and Zn powders were mixed as a raw material for spraying. Embedding G could boost the cathodic protection performance of Zn-Al (70 wt.% zinc and 30 wt.% aluminum) coating, as has been confirmed in previous work. In this work, the microstructure, composition and electrochemical parameters of Zn-G/Al coating during full immersion were measured to investigate G’s effect on the corrosion protection properties of the Zn-Al coating. The test results showed that embedded G could facilitate the generation of many corrosion products and pile on the coating surface to form a corrosion product film during full immersion. The corrosion product film on the Zn-0.2 wt.%G/Al coating surface demonstrated an excellent protective property, which reflects the fact that the Ecorr and icorr values for Zn-0.2 wt.%G/Al after 20d immersion (Ecorr = −1.143 Vvs.SCE, icorr= 49.96 μA/cm2) were lower than the initial value (Ecorr = −1.299 Vvs.SCE, icorr = 82.16 μA/cm2). It can be concluded that adding an appropriate amount of G to the coating can balance the cathodic protection and shielding property of the coating. The equilibrium mechanism was also analyzed in this work.