Long term durability performance of robust fly ash-red mud based geopolymer coatings: investigating comprehensive corrosion protection in soil burial environment
摘要
This study presented development of environment-friendly, corrosion protective geopolymer coating comprises of fly ash, red mud (additive 5/10/15%), alkali activators, silica fume, water, epoxy resin and hardener for protection of mild steel pipelines from early onset of corrosion in soil buried environment to minimize economic losses. Developed geopolymer material compositions were characterized using XRD, FTIR, FESEM/EDX and DSC. Characterization revealed active participation of red mud’s constituents in the geopolymer skeleton. Coating property evaluation of coated mild steel included adhesion strength, scratch resistance, thickness, static water/salt immersion test for 119 days, accelerated corrosion test for 500 h, Tafel extrapolation test and laboratory soil burial test for 735 days. The coated plates with different percentage of red mud showed excellent adhesion with variation from 15.99 to 17.40 MPa. The coated plates survived well in salt fog test after 500 h with negligible change in coating microstructure as evident from FESEM/EDX. The coated sample with 10% red mud demonstrated a superior corrosion protective characteristic with a corrosion rate of 0.023 mmpy and icorr of 1.86 µA cm−2using Tafel extrapolation test. This composition containing 10% red mud as an additive also proved to be best in for corrosion protection when subjected to soil burial environment for 735 days.