pH-Responsive, Thermoset Polymer Coatings for Active Protection against Aluminum Corrosion

This paper describes the synthesis and use of multifunctional methacrylic monomers, which contain basic (amine) functional groups, including an example in which an acid-labile tert-butylcarbamate-protected glycine is used to form a novel methacrylic monomer. The “protected” amino acid-derived functional monomer (BOC-Gly-MA) is copolymerized with an epoxide functional methacrylic monomer (GMA), to deliver novel multifunctional polymers, which are processed into powder coatings and used to study filiform corrosion at the surface of an aluminum substrate. The BOC-Gly-MA-containing copolymers were shown to improve a coating’s anticorrosion performance, presenting the lowest average filiform corrosion (FFC) track length, total FFC number, and total corroded surface area (CSA) of the coatings investigated. Further to this, a mode of action for the role of BOC-Gly functional polymers in corrosion protection is proposed, supported by both solution and polymer–aluminum interface studies, delivering new insights into the mode of action of pH-responsive polymer coatings.