Preliminary investigation of the impact of polymer composition on electrochemical properties of coatings as determined by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy

The influence of structural and systematic compositional variations in glycidyl carbamate (GC) functional polymers on the electrochemical properties of their coatings was studied. There are few reports which focus on the correlation of structural and compositional variations in polymer films with their electrochemical barrier properties, diffusion properties with regards to water and aqueous electrolytes, and corrosion performance. To begin to fill this knowledge gap, two sets of GC functional polymers were studied. The polymer compositions were designed to vary the extent of polar hydrophilic groups, non-polar hydrophobic groups, and reactive epoxy groups in the final coatings. Impedance responses of the coatings were found to be closely related to the structural and compositional variations of these GC polymer films. In addition, single frequency EIS experiments were used in an attempt to understand the water uptake behavior of these polymer films using NaCl solution and ionic liquid under immersed condition. The resulting transport property data of the films was correlated to their polymer structure and composition. Moreover, a novel attempt at ranking the stability of coating using capacitance measurement during a cyclic wetting–drying condition was also attempted. The information obtained from this work can potentially be used to optimize the polymer for the specific performance properties needed in the protective coating applications, saving significant time and effort in the research and development stage.