The electrochemical synthesis of poly(aniline-co-o-anisidine) on copper and their corrosion performances

The copolymer films PANI-co-POA and poly(aniline-co-o-anisidine) were carried out on copper (Cu) electrode, by applying two different scan rates (20 and 50 mV s-1) and using two different thicknesses at high scan rate. Synthesizes were achieved under cyclic voltammetric conditions from 0.075 M aniline and 0.075 M o-anisidine containing sodium oxalate solutions. The synthesized copolymer films were strongly adherent and homogeneous in both cases. AC impedance spectroscopy (EIS), anodic polarization plots and open circuit potential-time curves were used to evaluate the corrosion performance of copolymer coated and uncoated electrodes in 3.5% NaCl. It was shown that the copolymer film coated at low scan rate exhibited a better property initially when compared with the copolymer film produced at high scan rate. However, it could not resist the attack of corrosion products, in longer time and meanwhile its barrier property significantly diminished. It was found that the thin copolymer film produced at high scan rate by its catalysing effect led to the formation of highly protective copper oxides on the surface whereby providing a better protection for long exposure times. It also emerged that the corrosion resistances of thin copolymer film produced at high scan rate and copolymer film synthesized at low scan rate were almost same and relatively higher for much longer periods when compared with the one observed for bare copper electrode. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved