Functionalized and Biomimicked Carbon-Based Materials and Their Impact for Improving Surface Coatings for Protection and Functionality: Insights and Technological Trends

Interest in carbon materials has soared immensely, not only as a fundamental building block of life, but because its importance has been critical to the advancement of many diverse fields, from medicine to electrochemistry, which has provided much deeper appreciation of carbon functionality in forming unprecedented structures. Since functional group chemistry is intrinsic to the molecular properties, understanding the underlying chemistry of carbon is crucial to broadening its applicability. An area of economic importance associated with carbon materials has been directed towards engineering protective surface coatings that have utility as anticorrosive materials that insulate and provide defense against chemical attack and microbial colonization of surfaces. The chemical organization of nanoscale properties can be tuned to provide reliance of materials in carbon-based coating formulations with tunable features to enhance structural and physical properties. The transition of carbon orbitals across different levels of hybridization characterized by sp1, sp2, and sp3 orientations lead to key properties embodied by high chemical resistance to microbes, gas impermeability, enhanced mechanical properties, and hydrophobicity, among other chemical and physical attributes. The surface chemistry of epoxy, hydroxyl, and carboxyl group functionalities can form networks that aid the dispersibility of coatings, which serves as an important factor to its protective nature. A review of the current state of carbon-based materials as protective coating materials are presented in the face of the main challenges affecting its potential as a future protective coating material. The review aims to explore and discuss the developmental importance to numerous areas that connects their chemical functionality to the broader range of applications