Tuesday, 30 May 2017: 15:00
Grand Salon D - Section 22 (Hilton New Orleans Riverside)
Graphene coatings have been reported to suppress corrosion of various metal substrates due to their chemical inertness. However, the extent of protection offered depends on the uniformity and defect density of the graphene layers developed on the metallic substrates. Among the various synthesis methods, chemical vapour deposition (CVD) is one of the most promising ones to produce graphene coating on a variety of metal substrates. However, achieving controlled CVD growth of large area, uniform and less defective graphene coating is still challenging. This study investigates the influence of various CVD growth parameters during the graphene synthesis, such as hydrogen flow, carbon precursor flow, growth temperature and cooling rate used on the uniformity of the resultant graphene coating and its corrosion resistance. The barrier properties of graphene-coated Cu substrates were evaluated using potentiodynamic polarisation and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) in 0.1 M NaCl for 1008 h. High graphene growth temperature (1060 ºC) and low hydrocarbon flow rate (1 sccm) in the absence of H2 flow were identified to synthesize a uniform graphene coating, which showed durable barrier performance. During the initial hours of immersion, the graphene coated copper (Cu) specimens showed about one and half order of magnitude improvement in corrosion resistance in 0.1 M NaCl and even after 1008 h, the corrosion resistance provided by the graphene coating was almost five times more than that of bare Cu. The optimized CVD graphene parameters reported here can provide a new direction to achieve long-term durable graphene coating.