Chemical regulation of smart coating under high temperature marine environment: An in-situ bonding reorganization process

G Junhua and GQ Cao and M Gao and MX Ma and CY Chen and M Guo and BF Zhang and JH Hu, CHEMICAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL, 516, 164159 (2025).

DOI: 10.1016/j.cej.2025.164159

Material failure in high-temperature salt-spray environments predominantly aroused from the strong erosion of surface passivation layer, such as Cr2O3 and TiO2. Here, a novel amorphous Si-Zr-O (SZO) coating was designed against this extreme environment. Inspired by the biomineralization behavior, an in-situ chemical regulation mechanism was proposed. The Na absorption coupled with in-situ chemical bonding reorganization was identified and the SZO coating was self-reinforced to the structure of amorphous Si-Na-O and nanocrystalline t-ZrO2 (t-ZrO2/alpha-SNO). Molecular dynamics (MD) calculations indicated that the chemical stability and barrier property of amorphous Si-Na-O was closely related to the amount of Na content and bridging oxygen. Electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) analysis demonstrated that the appropriate Zr content in SZO facilitated optimal Na absorption, which ensured sufficient bridging oxygen and reduced the reactivity of the silicon site, thereby enhancing both chemical stability and barrier property. The optimized SZO coating demonstrated significant improvement in corrosion resistance, maintaining structural integrity for 100h in a 600 degrees C salt spray environment.

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