Fabrication of graphene oxide/8-hydroxyquinolin/inorganic coating on the magnesium surface for extraordinary corrosion protection

•Graphene oxides/aromatic heterocycles/inorganic materials prepared on the magnesium alloy surface.•Aromatic heterocycles and graphene oxides lead to the formation of hybrid functional materials.•Electrochemical performance was enhanced in the presence of graphene oxides and heterocycles. We report the use of self-assembled graphene oxides (GO)/8-hydroxyquinoline (8-Hq) /inorganic coating (IC) hybrid materials as protective materials that inhibits corrosion of underlying metals. We present the fabrication of a multilayer coating, GO/8-Hq/IC, combining graphene oxide and flowerlike organic-inorganic materials using a defective coating as the inorganic compounds and graphene oxides with 8-hydroxyquinoline as the organic compounds. The 8-Hq molecules form coordination complexes with metal ions (Mg (II) and Al (III)) from porous inorganic coating layer, and these complexes become knot sites for molecular self-assembly of 8-Hq and then GO particles. Physical adsorption between the molecular self-assembly of 8-Hq and GO particles leads to the growth of micrometer-sized particles that have nanoscale features. Finally, the extraordinary electrochemical stability was enhanced in the order GO/8-Hq/IC, 8-Hq/IC, and IC, which was discussed on the basis of polarization interpretation. The findings indicate that AZ31 Mg coated with the self-assembled GO/8-Hq/IC materials grown via plasma electrolytic oxidation and dip-chemical coating are corroded several times slower in aggressive solution as compared to corrosion rate of bare magnesium.