Corrosion and Protection of Marine Engineering Materials: Applications of Conducting Polymers and Their Composites

This book provides a basic introduction to the application of conductive polymers in corrosion protection, especially for marine environment corrosion protection research.

Conventional anticorrosive coatings, which are based on heavy metals such as chromium, zinc, and copper, are toxic to the environment. There has been a need to find suitable replacement coatings that are environmentally friendly as well as effective in inhibiting the corrosion of steel. Conductive polymers have garnered much attention in recent years due to their environmentally benign nature and high effectiveness in protecting against corrosion. This book introduces the history of these conductive polymers. The applications of conducting polymers, polymer composites, and nanocomposites for corrosion protection of different industrial metal substrates are explored based on reported experimental data, and their mechanism of inhibition is explained. This book also includes overviews of some recent works on marine antifouling, marine heavy-protective coatings, and waterborne paints by conducting polymer and inorganic composites.

Conducting polymers and their family of stimuli-actuated polymers exhibit excellent application prospects in the fields of anticorrosion, antibacterial, antibiofouling, and waterborne-based coatings. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars, and professionals alike in the field of corrosion engineering and material science.

Dr. Yanhua Lei received his doctoral degrees from the Department of Material Science and Engineering from Hokkaido University in 2014. He is now an associate professor at Shanghai Maritime University, China. His research interests include corrosion and protection, electrochemistry, and electro-catalysis, especially by using the conducting polymer and organic/inorganic composites.