Layer Control of Tubular Graphene for Corrosion Inhibition of Nickel Wires

Corrosion protection of complex surface is an active area of research due to its importance to commercial applications such as electrochemical fabrication. However, conventional coatings exhibit limited conductivity, thermal stability, and durability and are thus not suitable. Recent work has shown the potential of graphene, a two-dimensional carbon allotrope, for corrosion protection. The studies, however, limited themselves to simple planar geometries that provide limited insight in the applicability to relevant morphologies such as mesh electrodes and roughened surfaces. We here study the corrosion protection ability of tubular graphene (TG) on Ni-wires as a model system for such complex geometries. TG-covered Ni wires of approximately 50 μm diameters were produced by the annealing of cellulose acetate (CA) on Ni. The high quality of the TG coating was confirmed by Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and electrical measurements. We show that the graphene layer number could be controlled by adjusting the CA membrane quantity. We found a direct relation between the degree of corrosion inhibition with the variation of graphene layer number. The increase of graphene layers on a Ni surface could enhance its corrosion inhibition in acidic, basic, and marine environments, which shows the potential of our approach for future applications.