Effect of introduction of structural defects on protective ability of polyesters

Permeability of a polymer plays an important role in conferring the protective ability of organic coating to the steel surface against atmospheric corrosion. Although the relationship between structure of polymers and their permeability has been extensively studied in various applications like membranes, packaging, etc., such detailed study is lacking in the area of coatings. The systematic study of structure-permeability relationship of polymers in clear coatings can give guidelines in selecting the binder for the required application. This article deals with the effect of introduction of structural defects into a straight chain aliphatic polyesters on the protective ability of their clear coatings against corrosion. The mild steel panels coated with clear coatings based on the polyesters were exposed to humidity in humidity chamber. A novel technique of detecting the onset of corrosion was used instead of conventional methods that detect the failure of the coating due to corrosion. It was observed that even at 1-10% mole defect introduced by replacement of straight chain diols with branched diols, the protective ability of clear coatings was affected drastically.