Challenge
The Challenge was to design new highly effective inhibitor containing reservoirs that are reactive to environmental changes within the protective coating/interface with substrate. The new inhibiting pigments sequester aggressive corrosion ions into the coatings and release the highly effective inhibitor. The system is highly cost effective, originally designed to replace current technologies used in the architectural steel coatings market.
Process
We use in-house built scanning Kelvin probes (SKP) that can see through a polymer film and detect the potential of the metal underneath.
How
The gold reference probe vibrates in a sinusoidal manner above the coated metal surface, creating a small AC current. By calibrating the system, we convert the kelvin potential into the free corrosion potential of the metal underneath.
RESULTS
We get spatially resolved maps of corrosion potential in real time = 24 hour testing not the traditional minimum 500 hours for fully coated systems.
“This is a significant discovery and
shows how the U.K. is still a driving innovation
force in industry,”