LAUSR

Abstract Superhydrophobic corrosion resistant coatings have a wide range of applications. Although there have been several routes proposed in the literature for making them, most of them employ fluorine containing compounds which are not environmentally friendly. In this work, a combination of etchants (acid and oxidizing agent) and a low surface energy chemical devoid of fluorine, has been selected to develop superhydrophobic and corrosion resistant coatings on mild steel. Superhydrophobicity, as well as good corrosion resistance, were achieved. The coating with optimized concentration of ingredients has shown over 10 times more corrosion resistance compared to the base sample (i.e. corrosion current density for the coated sample decreased to ∼1.8 μA/cm2 compared to ∼17 μA/cm2 for uncoated sample). The development procedure along with characterization results such as contact angles and potentiodynamic polarization curves, and investigation on the effect of each ingredient have been presented.