New eco-friendly anticorrosive core-shell pigments

The purpose of this paper is to present the preparation of core-shell ferrites/kaolin pigments and comparing their efficiency in protecting metal substrates to original ferrites which were also prepared. Core-shell structured particles are recently gaining lots of importance due to their exciting applications in different fields; these particles are constructed from cores and shells of different chemical compositions which show ultimately distinctive properties of varied materials different from their counterparts. The new core-shell pigment is based on shell of different ferrites that comprises only 10-20 per cent of the whole pigment on kaolin (cores) which is a cheap and abundant ore that comprises 80-90 per cent of the prepared pigment. The new pigments do not only comprise two different components, but they also contain pigment and extender in the same compound; their loadings in the paint formulations ranges from 50 and 75 per cent of the whole pigment. The work showed that these eco-friendly and cheap core-shell pigments are comparable in their efficiency to that of ferrites in protecting steel substrates.

The different ferrites and ferrites/kaolin pigments were characterized using different analytical and spectrophotometric techniques, such as X-ray fluorescence, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy/energy-dispersive X-ray (SEM/EDAX) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Evaluation of these pigments was done using international standard testing methods (ASTM). After evaluation, the pigments were incorporated in solvent-based paint formulations based on medium oil-modified soya-bean dehydrated castor oil alkyd resin. The physico-mechanical properties of dry films and their corrosion properties using accelerated laboratory test in 3.5 per cent NaCl for 28 days were determined.

The results of this work revealed that ferrite/kaolin core-shell pigments were close in their performance to that of the ferrite pigments in protection of steel, and at the same time, they verified good physico-mechanical properties.

Treated kaolin can be applied in many industries beside pigment manufacture and paint formulations; it can be applied as reinforcing filler in rubber, plastics and ceramic composites. Also, it is applied in paper filling, paper coatings and electrical insulation.

Ferrite and ferrite/kaolin are environmentally friendly and can replace other hazardous pigments (e.g. chromates) with almost the same quality in their performance; also, they can be used in industries other than paints, for example paper, rubber and plastics composites.