Formation of superhydrophobic micro-nanostructured iron oxide for corrosion protection of N80 steel

Abstract

A new route to obtain a layer of micro-nanostructured Fe3O4 using hydrothermal method has been reported. The prepared dual-scale film, after a two-stage heat treatment and surface modification with dopamine and octadecylamine, shows a contact angle of 158.3° and sliding angle of 3.3°. The corrosion current density and the impedance of the superhydrophobic surface protected steel sample were, respectively, one order of magnitude lower and 32 times higher than that of the bare N80 steel in a 5 wt% NaCl aqueous solution. The superhydrophobic Fe3O4 film demonstrated excellent self-cleaning performance and was able to maintain its anti-wetting performance after water jetting test. Our work finds that annealing in N2 and then in O2 plays a significant role in fabricating the superhydrophobic Fe3O4 film for corrosion protection as this treatment is able to realize the desirable micro-nanostructured oxide structure.