Utilization of Waste Materials as Additives to Hybrid Sol-Gel Protective Coatings for Steel Substrate in the Marine Environment

The annual cost of corrosion and its related expenses in Saudi Arabia has been estimated to cost the country more than 90 billion Riyals which represents a reasonable percenta...age of the Kingdom’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In the Arabian Gulf alone, these expenses cover oil industries and applied companies and products, marine and aviation sectors, construction, and even domestic life. The corrosion phenomenon is a significant problem in this region due to the region’s climate and enormous oil and gas activities and associated pollution factors. The persistent increasing humidity, temperature, and dusty winds immensely degrade engineering materials and adversely affect their structural components. In the maritime sector of the Kingdom, the growth of undesirable colonies of microorganisms (algae and bacteria) and macro niches (like barnacles and marine weeds) on vessels waste fuels, and have huge environmental implication and economic consequences. Problems and consequences of material failure through corrosion could range from minor to severely catastrophic, with loss of lives and disruption of essential services, if the mechanism of the process and not just the causes is not promptly addressed. The application of Coatings is one of the most generic technologies used nowadays to protect engineering materials against corrosion and fouling. In this project, we are proposing the synthesis of novel, effective, non-toxic, and fast-curing hybrid organic-inorganic sol-gel resins starting from vinylsilane and metal alkoxide precursors. The new hybrid materials will be subjected to spectral [fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and proton & carbon-13 nuclear magnetic Resonance (1H & 13C NMR)], thermal [Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA)] and molecular weight [gel permeation chromatography (GPC)] characterizations. The embedment of various coating additives such as fillers, inhibitive pigments, adhesion promoters, biocides, etc. into the prepared base hybrid coatings has been proven as a successful strategy to maximize their desired protection properties for steel in aerated saline solutions. In particular, additives derived from materials used in daily life, the residues of which are considered waste materials, are promising and economic components of various classes of coatings. Modern approaches of waste management focus on the consideration of residues from both industrial and human daily-life activities as useful materials rather than undesired waste. We are trying here to design new embedded coatings with excellent anti-corrosion properties. This work is aimed at contributing to the solutions of material degradation and failures in Saudi Arabia with a view to reducing the cost already incurred. It will be a principal strategy of replacing paints and coating with questionable health and environmental concerns and legislation, and also prevent marine corrosion to a great extent for materials applications. Recently, our group has carefully tested the effect of mixing a hybrid silane coating with different waste materials on its corrosion protection and mechanical properties on an Al3003 metallic substrate. The application of a similar methodology for protecting steel structures has not yet been considered in the literature. Moreover, Scarce information is available in the literature on the interactions of such waste additives with hybrid sol–gel coatings systems; hence, this area of research is challenging and open for development. The circular economy is one of the grand challenges that is currently receiving a high level of attention from our center. Developing competency in the area of synthesizing new hybrid sol-gel materials will open wide opportunities for advanced application in coating preparation using a combination of film technology and metal protection. The project will cover both fundamental aspects and application in the coating, particularly anti-corrosion since the fundamental of relatively environmentally-friendly, cheap, and diverse single-coat anticorrosive coatings is still not established yet. Moreover, the methodology we are reporting in this work represents an effective tool for waste management in the aspect of significantly reducing, reusing, and recycling behaviors of wastes from human’s daily life activities. This challenging project will also train manpower and also contribute to education by providing challenging workable graduation project topics for both graduate and undergraduate students in the fields of material science and engineering, chemistry, and mechanical engineering.