Corrosion protection of AA 2024-T3 aluminium alloys using 3, 4-diaminobenzoic acid chelated zirconium–silane hybrid sol–gels

Organic-inorganic polymers formed by hydrolysis/condensation reactions of alkoxide precursors, such as organically modified silanes (Ormosils) are used for several industrial applications such as electronic, optical and protective anticorrosion coatings. Such materials possess superior chemical stability, physical strength and scratch resistance characteristics when compared to organic polymers. Further performance improvement can be achieved through the incorporation of zirconium and titanium based nanoparticles, also formed through from precursors via the sol-gel process. However due to the inherent reactivity differences of the above precursors, they must be hydrolysed separately before being combined for final condensation. Zirconium precursors are commonly chelated using acetic acid or acetyl acetonate prior to hydrolysis, to lower the hydrolysis rate. In this body of work, 3,4-diaminobenzoic acid (DABA) and acetyl acetonate (acac) were compared as chelating ligands for controlling the hydrolysis reactions of zirconium n-propoxide to form nanoparticles within a silane sol matrix. The sols were applied as coatings on aerospace grade aluminium alloy AA 2024-T3 and characterised by physical, spectroscopical, microscopical, electrochemical and calorimetric techniques. The electrochemical properties of the coatings, as characterised by EIS and PDS, correlated with neutral salt spray evaluations confirming that the use of DABA as a chelating ligand significantly improved the coating performance when compared to the traditional diketone ligand. The data indicates the anticorrosion properties of the nitrogen rich chelate have a key role in protecting the alloy through the formation of smaller zirconium nanoparticles, thus improving the polymer network stability.