Study of wear and corrosion performance of thermal sprayed engineering polymers

Protection of metallic components by hard oxide or ceramic–metallic coatings has proven to be not only an effective way to reduce wear and corrosion but also an expensive alternative. Polymer coatings have received increased attention as protection against corrosion and wear for several environmental conditions mainly in the automotive, petrochemical, oil and gas industries. Polymeric coatings exhibit outstanding tribological properties as low friction coefficients and high wear resistance. Thermal spray technology can successfully apply polymer coatings to a wide range of different substrate materials at various thicknesses. Thermally sprayed polymers have the potential to reduce material costs while improving coating performance in surface protection against friction, corrosion, and chemically aggressive products. In this work, a comparative study is carried out to evaluate the performance of some thermoplastic and hydrocarbon derived polymers deposited onto low carbon steel by thermal spray technology. Several tests were performed to evaluate the obtained coatings mainly related to wear and anti-corrosive performance. From the obtained results it can be stated that the used polymers have excellent performance in the wear and corrosion tests promising to be a very effective solution for wear and corrosion applications.

► We have thermally sprayed dense and adherent polymer coatings on carbon steel.
► The applied polymers have performed well in wear and corrosion tests.
► The used polymers promise to be an effective solution for tribological applications.
► Polyamide and PEEK coatings have shown no corrosive attack after 2000 h of testing.