Influence of Graphene Oxide and Urea on Friendly Citric-Treated Stainless Steel for Surface Protection

Green technology induced variety approaches to improve the environmentally citric passivation process for steel by embedding additives. This work examined the impact of inorganic ceramic graphene oxide (GO) compared to organic Urea on steel passivation as a new insight. Both of them Urea and GO inhibited the corrosion current (i_corr), effectively isolated steel from a corrosive environment. Actually, the hybrid film (mix of organic citric and inorganic GO) provided a protective barrier due to the dominant role of the carboxylic groups in corrosive ions inhibition. Amino groups in Urea can form a stable complex that decays by Cl ions to yield a less protected surface. In conclusion, the development of sustainable coatings for steel is the future work to maximize its corrosion resistance.