Molecular modelling insights into the performance of polymeric coatings containing active corrosion inhibitors

Sustainable Coatings by Rational Design (SusCoRD) is a multi-disciplinary project which aims to, for the first time, connect a detailed scientific understanding of the mechanisms of coatings failure with state-of-the-art-machine learning to deliver a framework for the optimisation of protective coatings and nanocomposite materials. The project is a collaboration between the Universities of Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool and our industrial partner AkzoNobel.

The aim of this PhD is to understand the mechanism of active inhibitor leaching from the coating and the formation of a protective layer on metallic surfaces that results from corrosion inhibitors leaching from polymeric coatings. Coatings can protect surfaces as a barrier that prevents the transport of water and ions, but when the coating is damaged, the metallic surface is exposed and susceptible for corrosion. Active corrosion protection is an effective way to protect metallic surfaces. When the coating is damaged, corrosion inhibitors are released to form a protective layer on the metal. The effectiveness of the coating then depends on the ability of the inhibitor to leach out of the coating, as well as the structure of the protective layer that was formed. In this work we want to model the transport of the inhibitor through the polymeric coating as well as the formation of the protective layer at an atomistic level, to extract kinetic parameters that can be used to describe the formation of the protective layer at a micrometer scale.

Informal applications can be made to Flor SiperStein ([email protected] )