Direct-to-Metal Interior Ship Coating with Nanoparticle Corrosion Inhibitors

Anti-corrosion coatings are critical to protecting and maintaining the integrity of U.S. Navy ships. Current naval ships utilize a protective coating system that consists of separate primer and topcoat films, both individually applied. This practices contributes significantly to the ship’s construction schedule and cost. The affordability of the coating process could be improved if a one-coat, direct-to-metal coating could be used instead. Unfortunately, direct-to-metal coatings, have not performed as well as two coating systems, and corrosion protection performance is crucial in the aggressive marine environment. TDA has recently developed a new class of corrosion inhibiting nanomaterial additives that can dramatically increase the corrosion-resistance performance of epoxy coatings. The inclusion of TDA’s corrosion inhibitors in a direct-to-metal coating epoxy will provide the needed performance boast over previous one-coat systems. In the Phase I we will incorporate the nanomaterial corrosion inhibitors into a direct-to-metal coating based on a high performance epoxy resin system for naval ships. We will demonstrate that the one-coat system is as effective as current multi-coat systems.