Preparation and Characterization of Low Surface Energy Waterborne Acrylic Anticorrosion and Antibacterial Coatings Applied in Maritime Protection

Waterborne acrylic coating is widely used in the maritime anticorrosion field. However, the corrosion of metals caused by microorganism adhesion is often neglected. The objective of this study was to devise a facile method for the preparation of waterborne acrylic coatings endowed with anticorrosive and antibacterial capabilities. In view of this, a bactericidal nanofiller QAS@SiO2 was prepared by a hydrolytic condensation reaction between dimethyloctadecyl [3-(trimethoxysilyl) propyl] ammonium chloride (QAS) and SiO2 nanoparticles. Subsequently, the QAS@SiO2 nanofillers were further blended with cross-linked fluoro-silicon polyacrylate polyurethane hybrid emulsion (CFSAU-8) to obtain QAS@SiO2/CFSAU coatings with integrated anticorrosive and antibacterial properties. The results indicated that the grafting efficiency of QAS on SiO2 attained the highest (15.99%) when the QAS content was 20 wt %. The investigations into the effects of adding different amounts of QAS@SiO2 on coating properties revealed that when the content of QAS@SiO2 was 3 wt %, the obtained 3%QAS@SiO2/CFSAU exhibited the lowest water absorption, good mechanical properties, high antiwear properties, better antibacterial properties, and excellent antifouling properties and still possessed high anticorrosion properties. In the corrosion tests after 5 days, the excellent comprehensive properties suggested that the coating has great potential for applications in the long-term maritime protection field.