| Summary: | <p>Anionic chromate (VI) compounds are inhibitive pigments and have been effectively incorporated into organic coatings to protect metal surfaces from aggressive ions, but their risk as a human carcinogen and being harmful to the environment has led to the search of suitable alternatives. Aluminium alloy, AA2024-T3, is the substrate metal alloy used in the experiments and can be found in aircraft fuselage structures due to their high strength-to-weight ratio. However, the presence of intermetallic particles increases susceptibility to localised corrosion.</p> <p>To investigate the protection mechanisms of primers on light alloys, many different factors must be taken into account; from aluminium alloy corrosion processes, the effects of intermetallic additions to coating chemistry, morphology and inhibitive pigments. The chemical environment in which the samples are tested in will also affect the corrosion mechanisms of the alloy as well as the performance of the coatings and release of pigments. It will be important to consider which factors are operating under particular conditions so that experimental results can then be best interpreted.</p> <p>As part of this project, potentiodynamic polarisation, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and electrochemical noise analysis have been used to investigate the protective mechanisms in which chromate-based paints protect against corrosion and UV-Visible spectroscopy, scanning acoustic microscopy and optical microscopy have been used to investigate pigment release mechanism to identify what characteristics are important when developing new primers.</p>
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