In order to improve the corrosion resistance of low infrared emissivity polyurethane (PU)/Cu coating, ethylene-propylene-diene monomer (EPDM) and maleic anhydride grafted EPDM (EPDM-g-MAH) were deposited on PU/Cu coating by spin coating, respectively. The ability of EPDM and EPDM-g-MAH to serve as corrosion protective films for PU/Cu coating was examined by evolved emissivity immersion test and potentiodynamic polarization measurements in 3.5% NaCl solution. And the chemical composition and surface morphology of PU/Cu coating before and after corrosion were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results showed that all of the coated samples present a better corrosion resistance than bare PU/Cu coating due to indissolubility of Cu by aggressive ions, and the effect of EPDM-g-MAH is better than that of EPDM. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.