Emerging applications of carbon-based nanomaterials as anticorrosive coatings: A review on protection mechanisms and performance evaluation

Corrosion-induced degradation of metallic structures remains a critical challenge in several areas of applications like marine and energy generation environments among others. Hence, the need to overcome this problem has necessitated the development of high-performance protective coatings with improved durability and multifunctionality. Among these innovations, carbon-based nanomaterials (CBNs), including graphene, graphene oxide (GO), reduced graphene oxide (rGO), and carbon nanotubes (CNTs), have recently emerged as promising anticorrosive coating materials. Justification for this was based on their exceptional barrier properties, mechanical strength, electrical conductivity, and chemical stability. Thus, this review systematically examines recent advances in carbon-based nanomaterial anticorrosive coatings, focusing on industrial applicability based on protection mechanisms, fabrication strategies, and performance evaluation. While it has been established that, CBN-reinforced coatings can improve corrosion resistance by over 80–95%, this review highlights the critical role of nanomaterial dispersion, interfacial engineering, and fabrication techniques in determining coating performance and long-term stability. Besides, this work provides an integrated assessment of hybrid coating systems, functionalisation strategies, emerging smart/self-healing technologies and scalability challenges. It was discovered that, despite outstanding progress, challenges associated with agglomeration, processing cost, and large-scale implementation remain significant barriers to commercialisation. Hence, providing critical insights into the design of next-generation multifunctional anticorrosive coatings and identifying future research directions toward artificial intelligence (AI) based assisted high-performance corrosion protection systems, scalability, and sustainability is imperative.