Dear Colleagues,

Over the last two decades, interest has been growing in applying “smart coatings” in protecting against metal corrosion, owing to their capability of responding to a broad spectrum of environmental stimuli on demand, including temperature, pH, aggressive ions, heat, light, or mechanical stress. Polymers with diverse and tailorable functional groups are the perfect materials for such a purpose and therefore have been extensively explored. Organic or inorganic corrosion inhibitors are often embedded into the polymeric coating substrate either by direct dispersion or encapsulation, thereby allowing the metal substrate to self-heal upon corrosion damage. However, several challenges still exist in this actively developing area. For example, even after encapsulation in micro-/nanocarriers, highly soluble corrosion inhibitors can still leach from the coating substrate and create defects inside the smart coating, thereby undermining the long-term durability of the coating. Sophisticated approaches are also needed to create polymers with high compatibility with several highly effective organic/inorganic corrosion inhibitors. Therefore, the purpose of this Special Issue is to collect high-quality research or review articles focusing on smart polymeric coatings for corrosion mediation. We encourage researchers to publish their articles in this journal, providing their novel solutions to developing novel polymeric coatings and addressing some of the existing challenges.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Xiaolei Guo
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• active corrosion protection
• encapsulation
• functional polymers
• smart coatings
• self-healing