Achieving anti-corrosion and anti-biofouling dual-function self-healing coating by natural carrier attapulgite loading with 2-Undecylimidazoline

In the marine environment, the protective coatings face serious corrosion and biofouling problem, lim-itations, and challenges that made self-healing coatings unable to perform both anti-corrosion and anti-biofouling dual-function at the same time. Here we constructed the corrosion resistance and anti-biofouling self-healing coating by integrating nano-containers into the coating matrix, the 2-Undecylimidazoline (ULM) acted as a corrosion inhibitor and anti-biofouling dual-functional agent which was loaded on the natural container attapulgite (ATP). To obtain high healing efficiency, a fluidity-driven self-healing silicone oil coating was thickened by fibrous ATP to enhance its stability, which played a key role in the self-healing and long-term corrosion resistance. The self-healing time of ULM@ATP rein-forced oil coating was 4 s at least in the air and up to 30 s in the 1 M HCl solution. Meanwhile, the ULM@ATP can significantly enhance the corrosion resistance of the self-healing coating, with the best effect achieved when the content of ULM@ATP was 5 wt.%. The impedance modulus of ULM@ATP-2 still reached 1.62 x 10 8 Q cm2 after 480 immersion in 3.5 wt.% NaCl solution, which is 3 orders of magnitude high than pure Oil coating (2.17 x 10 5 S2 cm2). The restructure of the ATP network and the release of ULM could largely inhibit the corrosion of metal. The continuous open circuit potential of the compos-ite coating performed the potentially infinite self-healing capacity. The self-healing performances of the composite coating in strong acid and base solutions exhibited high environmental suitability. This anti-corrosion and anti-biofouling (the surface coverage of adhered chlorella decreased 96.88%) dual-function strategy of self-healing coatings could be also realized by many other porous nano-materials or function modifications. The self-healing performances of the composite coating in strong acid and base solutions exhibited high environmental suitability. This anti-corrosion and anti-biofouling dual-function strategy of self-healing coatings could be also realized by many other porous nano-materials or function modifica-tions. The rapid response self-healing coating possessed anti-biofouling and active self-healing functions and showed wide application under more service environments.(c) 2023 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The editorial office of Journal of Materials Science & Technology.