Cathodic delamination of seawater-immersed anticorrosive coatings: Mapping of parameters affecting the rate

Cathodic delamination is one of the major modes of failure for organic coatings immersed in seawater and refers to the weakening or loss of adhesion between the coating and the substrate. The diminished adhesion is the result of electrochemical reactions occurring at the coating–steel interface, where solid iron is oxidized to ferrous ions and oxygen is reduced to hydroxyl ions. In this work, the effects of various parameters on cathodic delamination have been investigated. The parameters are: permeability of the coating, concentration of dissolved oxygen and cations, polarization potential, type of binder, degree of curing, and pigment loading, shape and type. The results show that cathodic delamination increases with increasing concentration of cations up to the point where the concentration of dissolved oxygen becomes insufficient to maintain the corrosion rate. The rate of cathodic delamination is inversely proportional to the magnitude of polarization potential when ions can penetrate the coating, while cathodic polarization does not affect cathodic delamination when the ionic transport is restricted to the coating–steel interface. Increasing the pigment loading or partial replacement of spherical pigments with flake-shaped micaceous iron oxide or aluminium pigments reduces the rate of cathodic delamination. Finally, binders with an increasing amount of secondary hydroxyl groups in the polymer backbone reduce the rate of cathodic delamination while increasing the initial molar ratio of amide to epoxide increases cathodic delamination.