Wear and corrosion resistance of fluorocarbon/epoxy blended coatings nanofilled by mechanically peeled few-layer fluorinated graphene

In order to prepare novel fluorocarbon resin coatings with outstanding wear and corrosion resistance, this manuscript prepared few-layer fluorinated graphene (FG) nanosheets through a simple mechanical exfoliation method, and nanofilled them into the fluorocarbon resin/epoxy resin (FEVE/EP) blended matrix to prepare FG-FEVE/EP nanocomposite coating. The exfoliated FG was 4–7 layers and contained active O–H and C=C functional groups in addition to abundance of C–F bonds that were identical to those of FEVE. The as-prepared FG layers were freely stacked and possessed low orientation, and exhibited good dispersion and interfacial compatibility in the FEVE/EP matrix. The FG-FEVE/EP nanocomposite coating filled with 0.1 wt% FG (0.1% FG-FEVE/EP) achieved the hardness of 3H and adhesion strength of 7.7 MPa. Compared with pure FEVE/EP coating, the 0.1% FG-FEVE/EP reduced the friction coefficient by 10.6% and 30.7% and the wear rate by 55.1% and 56.1% under dry friction and simulated seawater friction conditions, respectively. In addition, the EIS testing and fitting data yielded that the impedance modulus of the 0.1% FG-FEVE/EP was two orders of magnitude higher than that of the FEVE/EP coating after 15 days of immersion in NaCl solution, and the coating resistance (Rc) still reached 1.6 × 109 Ω cm2, showing excellent corrosion resistance. The excellent wear and corrosion resistance of the FG-FEVE/EP was attributed to the fact that the FG prepared by mechanical peeling was uniformly dispersed and interfacially compatible in the FEVE/EP matrix, which contributed to the excellent interlayer lubrication, stress resistance and barrier corrosion protection of FG.