Abstract
This work reports the mechanical properties and corrosion performance of a newly fabricated series of protective epoxy coatings for offshore applications. Bisphenol A diglycidyl ether epoxy resin (DGEBA) was treated with different stoichiometry variations of polyamidoamine adducts (ARADUR-PA450) as a curing agent at ambient temperature to fabricate four different formulations of epoxy coatings (DGEBA-PA450). The cured epoxy coatings were applied on glass and steel substrates for mechanical and corrosion characterizations, respectively. Mechanical tests were performed for the coated glass samples using scratch tester, mandrel bend, cross hatch tester, and pendulum hardness measurements. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy attenuated total reflectance (FT-IR-ATR) was employed to report the composition of the fabricated coatings. The coated steel coupons were immersed for 1 h and 7 days in aerated stagnant solutions of 3.5% NaCl and corrosion test was conducted using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) investigations. Collected results together indicated that all fabricated epoxy formulations can be used as protective coatings against corrosive marine environments and that due to the high cross-linking of the amino group of the polyamidoamine adducts ARADUR 450 at ambient temperature.