Successful application of graphene-based anti-corrosion coatings

After three years of dedicated effort to overcome technical challenges, an internationally leading product was developed. To address the issues of salt spray corrosion and medium erosion faced by storage tanks, pipelines and other facilities in marine and coastal areas, Shanghai Institute, together with its East China sales branch and the Luoyang Technology R&D Center for petrochemical engineering, formed a specialized team that spent three years overcoming the key technical difficulties. Leveraging its proprietary manufacturing processes, the team has successfully developed a series of graphene-based anti-corrosion coatings with excellent impact resistance, salt spray resistance, and corrosion resistance. These coatings have obtained **C5 certification from the Coating Quality Inspection Center (the highest standard for heavy-duty anti-corrosion coatings), meeting the most stringent anti-corrosion requirements outlined in the ISO 12944 international standard. This technology has been included in Sinopec’s list of key technologies for research and development, and it has been selected as one of the \"Top 10 New Chemical Materials\" by Sinopec, underscoring its leading role in the industry. Through the combined efforts of industry, academia, research institutions, and end-users, a model project has been created. The Chenshan Oil Depot project represents not only a validation of technical achievements but also an example of efficient collaboration among Sinopec’s R&D, engineering, and business units. During the pilot application phase, the R&D team from the Shanghai office was on site to provide technical support, the Luoyang R&D center improved the construction procedures, and the sales team in East China coordinated resources to ensure efficient implementation. The project adheres to strict high-standard quality control, overseeing every aspect from material mixing to the painting process, thereby demonstrating strong operational capabilities in integrating research, production, and sales – laying a foundation for future large-scale deployment. Expanding new scenarios for the marine economy to support green development: The use of graphene-based anti-corrosion coatings will significantly extend the lifespan of oil and gas storage and transportation facilities and reduce maintenance costs, making them particularly suitable for applications such as offshore platforms, coastal storage tanks, and steel structures in ports. As the development of global marine resources accelerates, this technology is expected to provide critical material support for China’s strategy to become a maritime power, while also contributing to the green and low-carbon transformation of the petrochemical industry.

To meet the needs of various applications, the Ningbo Institute of Materials Science has successfully developed 8 series of anti-corrosion and wear-resistant coatings, including graphene (white graphene)-based coatings for coastal oil storage tanks, antistatic anti-corrosion coatings, anti-corrosion coatings for power grid towers, anti-corrosion coatings for photovoltaic towers, seawater-resistant anti-corrosion coatings, and special coatings for aerospace and defense applications. The graphene-based heavy-duty anti-corrosion coating has passed third-party testing procedures such as 5,000 hours of salt spray testing, 2,000 hours of resistance to 5% H2SO4, and 2,000 hours of resistance to 5% NaCl immersion. To address the issues regarding the storage stability of current graphene-based anti-corrosion coating systems, the process performance required for practical application, and the stability of the coatings, which have not yet been thoroughly validated in real-world engineering applications, the Ningbo Institute of Materials Science, in collaboration with **Ningbo Electric Power Company of the power grid and Zhejiang Haiyan Power Supply Company, carried out large-scale demonstration projects on large-scale transmission towers and substation facilities. This has laid the foundation for the long-term safe operation of power transmission and distribution infrastructure in high-humidity and high-temperature environments along the Belt and Road Initiative. In the area of developing specialized databases, the team took on the **task related to the Materials and Environmental Corrosion Platform; it was responsible for establishing the \"Special Database on Graphene in Environmental Corrosion\". By conducting indoor accelerated degradation tests and application demonstrations, the team gathered experimental data and information on environmental degradation of graphene coatings in marine and atmospheric environments. This data provided support and a scientific basis for the widespread use of graphene coatings in relevant fields as well as for the development of standards, thereby contributing to the advancement of new technologies and theories related to graphene-based surface protection in China.

Anticorrosive coatings are generally divided into conventional anticorrosive coatings and high-performance anticorrosive coatings, and they are an essential type of coating in the paint industry. Conventional anti-corrosion coatings are mainly used to protect metal components, while heavy-duty anti-corrosion coatings require higher standards and more sophisticated technical specifications. For example, for use in various harsh environments, such as facilities that protect the marine environment, high-temperature environments, and chemical-corrosion environments. Our country is a major consumer of heavy-duty anti-corrosion coatings. However, due to the late start of the coating industry, the coating manufacturers that hold a large share of the market are currently located in North America, Europe, and Japan. Therefore, accelerating the development of China’s own high-performance anti-corrosion coating industry can not only contribute to the processes of industrialization and urbanization, but also ensure that the technologies in this field are not subject to external control, enable them to keep up with China’s technological advancements, and help meet the demands of the future coating market. At present, with the development of China’s economic construction, many industries such as construction, transportation, petrochemicals, and hydropower have experienced extraordinary growth, leading to a rapid increase in the demand for related auxiliary products. In recent years, with the emergence of a range of new anti-corrosion coatings, the Chinese anti-corrosion coating market has shown healthy growth, with its market size continuing to expand. Ewen Technology has played a crucial role in this.

As a leader among China’s graphene-based innovation enterprises, it has been engaged in research on graphene-modified coatings since its establishment. Lianwang Technology has, leveraging the superior properties of graphene, its strong capabilities in graphene production and preparation, its solid corporate foundation, and its large technical team, managed to blaze a path for graphene-modified anti-corrosion coatings. Enwang Technology has established a graphene coating operation center at its headquarters in Shenzhen, and has set up multiple R&D institutions across the country. It has also invested in building large-scale coating production facilities with capacities of tens of thousands of tons in South China and East China respectively. By highlighting the advantages of graphene-modified anti-corrosion coatings in the field of specialty coatings, it aims to gradually meet the ever-evolving market demands in the traditional anti-corrosion coating industry; by using chemical anti-corrosion as a starting point, it leads graphene toward innovation within the coating industry. For example, the graphene-modified functional coating developed by Enwang Technology not only possesses high anti-corrosion properties but also overcomes the technical limitations in coating technology, achieving a combination of anti-corrosion, heat conduction, and insulation functions. It should be noted that in traditional anti-corrosion coating products, these three functions can usually only be applied separately, whereas graphene-modified functional coatings represent a breakthrough in this regard. Graphene-based anti-corrosion, heat-conducting, and insulating coatings have been developed, allowing one coating to serve multiple purposes and providing multiple layers of protection. With the introduction of the \"Made in China 2025\" plan, the equipment manufacturing industry has encountered new opportunities for its historical development. For the coating industry, the prosperity of the equipment manufacturing sector serves as a driving force for the development of anti-corrosion coatings, as this sector involves almost all types of anti-corrosion coatings in use today.