“…However, the addition of cerium salts into the sol-gel matrix changes its physical, chemical and corrosion properties [11,25]. Cerium is a network modifier, i.e., it increases the condensation rate of the hybrid sol and forms a more condensed network due to the reduction of the amount of silanol groups (Si−OH) [27,36]. The addition of cerium also leads to further condensation and crosslinking between polymer molecules [27,37,38].…”