Abstract
Coatings based on graphene nanostructures represent one of the most promising solutions for protecting metals from corrosion. However, their application remains unprofitable due to the high production costs, which are caused by the imperfections in graphene nanostructures synthesis methods. Therefore, this work utilized few-layer graphene particles synthesized via self-propagating high-temperature synthesis for coating fabrication. The effectiveness of these coatings in protecting metals against corrosion was tested in a salt spray chamber. It was found that the synthesized coatings provide excellent protection for the steel substrate against corrosion, and their effectiveness is significantly higher than that of polymer coatings based on epoxy resin. A hypothesis was proposed to explain the high efficiency of the coatings based on few-layer graphene particles. This is attributed to their low defect density (absence of Stone-Wales defects in their structure) and the presence of multiple layers, which enhances the barrier effect.