Self-healing additives for corrosion protection
Self-healing additives are used in high performance coatings to repair coating damage immediately after it occurs. Self-healing additives extend
long term coating performance by imparting extreme corrosion resistance, maintained adhesion and extended service life after damage in a wide range of applications from high-performance systems for oil & gas and industrial maintenance to consumer applications.
What is a self-healing additive?
A self-healing additive is used in coating formulations to provide autonomous corrosion protection and prevent undercut adhesion loss when damage occurs. This self-healing property makes the coating a functional and smart coating: functional because it acts as a corrosion protective coating and smart because the healing is automatically triggered by the damage itself. Self-healing additives provide a dynamic functionality to protective coatings by regenerating critical protective properties in the damaged area of the coating. In traditional protective coatings, the protection is typically provided by a static (or non-responsive) property of the coating (hydrophobic coatings for example).
What are the benefits expected from self-healing additives in high performance coatings?
Deterioration of a coating due to physical, mechanical, thermal or related everyday environmental stresses in the workplace leads to moisture penetration and corrosion of underlying metal substrates as well as structural and/or biological degradation of wood, concrete, etc. With self-healing additives incorporated in the protective coating, the degradation process activates the autonomous delivery of microencapsulated liquid agents to enable:
- Extended coating lifetime
- Improved asset protection
- Reduced maintenance cost
Below is an example of the performance you can expect by using the self-healing additives: full protection over time and no exposed metal!
Standard coating |
Self-healing coating |
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Images by scanning microscopy (SEM)
Do you want to learn more about self-healing additives?
Visit the other pages dedicated to this self-healing technology: