Tehran, Iran  January 9th, 2015

The coating has self-repairing properties and the application of the coating reduces maintenance and repairing costs of the structures, specially at seaside.

The presence of concrete infrastructures is necessary in all construction industries and projects. Corrosion of steel armatures inside the concrete results in the destruction of a huge concrete complex. This phenomenon is inevitable in concrete structures, and it becomes more severe in the structures floating in seawater.

The researchers used nanocomposite coating with self-repairing properties to overcome this problem. Based on the results, the coating creates unique anti-corrosive properties to the extent that the reduction in the taking-out strength of the armature is negligible in comparison with that of normal samples after being floated in seawater for six months.

Test results showed that after six months, the resistance against corrosion gradually decreases in the witness sample and in the sample with epoxy coating. However, in the sample with self-repairing nanocomposite coating, the reduction does not have a linear trend, and much higher corrosion resistance is observed in these samples.

The use of polyaniline/camphorsulfonate nanoparticles (self-repairing agent) results in the presence of the particles all over the nanocomposite even at low concentrations. Therefore, it can be claimed that in case of corrosion at any place, polyaniline/camphorsulfonate nanoparticles are present to stop the corrosion reactions. This does not happen when the particles are used at micrometric scale.