Comparison on Effects of Water on Adhesion Properties of Surface Coating Polyurea and Epoxy

Surface coating is essentially important to overcome the corrosion problem, namely in oil and gas industry. Corroded pipelines (internally or externally) may require a major cost (in terms of capital cost and side costs i.e. to maintain a healthy and sustainable environment) if the problem is not being encountered properly. The immediate objective of this project is to make a comparison on the effects of water absorption on the adhesion properties of polyurea and epoxy. Parameters involved are thickness of coating and temperature of environment. The experiment done is water absorption where the absorption rate is being analysed. This is followed by evaluation using Pull-Off Adhesion Test and verified using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The results indicate that polyurea has higher absorption rate and lower bond strength due to water absorption compared to epoxy. SEM analysis shows that polyurea is more suitable to be applied at thickness of 2mm coating and above at 50°C. In conclusion, polyurea is more prone towards loss of adhesion compared to epoxy. High absorption in polyurea also indicates a possibility of high release of unreacted components inside polyurea, which may harm the environment. For future studies purpose, the project may focus on extraction and verifying the exact quantity of unreacted species inside the polymer