Promote the controlled-released of Cu ions using galvanic corrosion to achieve high-efficiency antifouling coating

The threat of fouling organisms attached to ships and offshore equipment has brought great obstacles to the development of marine undertakings. Antifouling coatings represented by Cu 2 O is one of the most widely used antifouling paints at present, but they are facing the situation of initial explosion and final release exhaustion of Cu ions, which make long-term antifouling become one of the bottlenecks of the current antifouling coatings. To solving the problem of controlled-release of Cu ions, in this paper, a controlled-release system based on galvanic corrosion is prepared by using reduced graphene (rGO) supported poorly soluble metal Cu as antifouling agents (rGO/Cu), and the controlled-release principle of the system is studied from the perspective of electrochemistry. Its antifouling performance is evaluated by Cu ions release rate and indoor antifouling experiment. The experimental controlled release system has the controlled-release performance of Cu ions, which benefits from the shielding effect of rGO sheet, and the stable dissolution of Cu after the formation of galvanic corrosion between poorly soluble Cu and rGO. The sample EC041 with the highest rGO content (17.70 %) has the specific surface area ratio of rGO to Cu of 462; the Cu ions release rates dispersed into the coatings have the lowest RSD value of 44.45 % during 21 days testing cycle. The experimental results show that the controlled-release system has a stable antifouling effect.