On the degradation mechanism of corrosion protective poly(ether imide) coatings on magnesium AZ31 alloy

In previous publications of the authors, good performance of poly(ether imide) as corrosion protective coatings for magnesium AZ31 alloy was reported. It was suggested that during the sample degradation magnesium hydroxide could react with the imide ring forming magnesium polyamate and polyamic acid, but this could not be experimentally confirmed. In the present letter, we confirm the occurrence of this reaction by infrared and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and discuss its influence in the corrosion behavior observed in electrochemical impedance spectroscopy tests. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.