Epoxy coatings have outstanding adhesion and durability attributes and have been used extensively to coat steel structures to retard corrosion due to combined effect of humidity and oxygen. However, epoxy absorbs moisture and it does not offer high barrier to oxygen for long term anti-corrosion protection. To enhance its corrosion resistance, the possibility of incorporation of nano platelets was investigated. Nanoclays (NCs) when properly exfoliated assume a platelet configuration of 1 nm in thickness and about 500 by 500 nm in lateral dimensions with surface area approaching 750 m2 / gr. Thus, very low amounts of NCs (0.5 – 3% by weight) having appropriate chemical modification could be used as high barrier elements to both oxygen and humidity, provided its alignment could be controlled to be parallel to the surface that has to be protected. Experimental results have shown that functionalized NCs can increase the barrier to oxygen by five-fold and to humidity by more than nine-fold, respectively, in epoxy systems. To allow alignment of NCs platelets parallel to the surface, the viscosity of the coating system should be low enough to allow the interfacial rheology to govern the alignment of the platelets. However, as NCs usually increase the coating viscosity due to its high surface area and enhanced interaction with the epoxy resin, it was found that to obtain the required alignment, the quantity of the NCs should be limited to obtain best corrosion protection. Consequently, formulated epoxy coatings with addition of 0.5 to 2% NCs exhibited more than 2000 hours endurance in salt spray conditions compared to 700 hours in formulations without NCs. In addition, an increase in wet strength adhesion, resistance to acids and bases and electrical resistance was obtained in epoxy formulations that included treated NCs. These outstanding results were patented and commercialized for epoxy primers and intermediate coatings, polyurethane and acrylics based coatings.