Reduction of Magnesium Corrosion Rate by PMMA-co-PMAA Films

Magnesium is an important base material for non-permanent implants, even though its corrosion rate in the human body is usually elevated for most applications. In order to reduce that rate, polymer coatings can be a better option than heavy-metal containing Mg alloys. In this work, random copolymers of PMMA and PMAA were synthesized and used for coating pure Mg by simply immersing Mg coupons into a diluted copolymer solution. It has been shown by SEM analysis and quantitative adsorption analysis that the copolymers have adsorbed onto the Mg surface. All the coated materials presented a lower corrosion rate than the uncoated Mg, reaching close to 100% reduction for most of the copolymer up to 6 hours of testing. The copolymers with 5, 8 and 13% of PMAA in their composition showed the best performances as corrosion controllers.