Corrosion protection of aluminum and aluminum alloys by polyanilines: A potentiodynamic and photoelectron spectroscopy study

AbstractCorrosion protection capabilities of polyaniline in the emeraldine base form and self-doped sulfonated polyaniline form have been studied for aluminum and Al 3003 and Al 2024-T3 alloys. The polyaniline is applied as a coating on the aluminum coupons which were exposed to a variety of corrosive environments, including 0.1 M NaCl. The oxide layers that formed were studied by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy depth profiling using argon sputtering. Potentiodynamic polarization studies were used to determine changes in corrosion current and corrosion potential as well as pitting potential. For Al and Al 3003 there were modest indications of potential corrosion protection capability of polyanilines. The coatings of emeraldine base (EB) and sulfonated polyaniline (SPAN) on Al 2024-T3 were effective at reducing the corrosion rate when these coated coupons were exposed to 0.1 M NaCl environment. The XPS study suggests a reduction in the copper concentration at the surface of the coated coupons. It is suggested that the EB and sulfonated polyaniline coatings facilitate the extraction of copper from the surface of the Al 2024-T3 thereby reducing the galvanic couple between aluminum and copper that usually leads to accelerated corrosion for the Al 2024-T3 alloys.