Crevice corrosion protection potential

The anodic polarization curve for a specimen with an active crevice will be in principle as shown in Figure 7.17. In this case a very small free external surface is assumed, and any internal hydrogen reduction is disregarded. is the potential as measured with the reference electrode positioned outside the crevice. As explained above, the real potential in the crevice, Ei , is more negative. The lower limit for corrosion in an active crevice is the protection (or repassivation) potential Epr. However, the critical potential that must be exceeded for initiation of the ereviee corrosion process, the crevice corrosion initiation potential, is higher than the protection potential. 

Titanium is susceptible to pitting and crevice corrosion in aqueous chloride environments. The area of susceptibiUty for several alloys is shown in Figure 7 as a function of temperature and pH. The susceptibiUty depends on pH. The susceptibiUty temperature increases paraboHcaHy from 65°C as pH is increased from 2ero. After the incorporation of noble-metal additions such as in ASTM Grades 7 or 12, crevice corrosion attack is not observed above pH 2 until ca 270°C. Noble alloying elements shift the equiUbrium potential into the passive region where a protective film is formed and maintained. 

Cathodic protection applications in fresh water include use of ferrite-coated niobium , and the more usual platinum-coated niobium . Platinised niobium anodes have been used in seawater, underground and in deep wells " and niobium connectors have been used for joining current leads Excellent service has been reported in open-seawater, where anodic potentials of up to 120V are not deleterious, but crevice corrosion can occur at 20 to 40V due to local surface damage, impurities such as copper and iron, and under deposits or in mud ... 

Two recent studies have used surface techniques to examine the protective layers formed in various oxidation conditions and related the nature of the oxide to the corrosion rates in specific environments. Hultquist and Leygraf (43, 44) have examined crevice corrosion resistance in a NaCl solution at room temperatures while Baer (45) has looked at higher temperature (800°C) air oxidation. Oxygen potential, or partial pressure, is an important parameter in both studies where it was found that controlled oxidation can tailor the Cr profile in the alloy and surface oxide for maximum corrosion protection. Specific goals in each experiment were oxide characterization and comparison to corrosion rates... 

It is also an accepted fact that the crevice corrosion ceases to grow at potentials less positive than a certain critical potential resulting in crevice protection as shown for austenitic stainless steel in Figure 22.30 [59,61]. The critical potential, Ecrev, is called crevice protection potential or the critical crevice corrosion potential. It was found for a cylindrical crevice in austenitic stainless steel that the crevice protection potential shifts in the less positive direction as a logarithmic function of solution chloride concentration [61] ... 

It is in fact the acidification of the occluded crevice solution that triggers the crevice corrosion. The critical acid concentration, < , , for crevice corrosion to occur corresponds to what we call the passivation-depassivation pH, beyond which the metal spontaneously passivates. This critical acidity determines the crevice passivation-depassivation potential, and hence the crevice protection potential Ecrev. The electrode potential actually measured consists of the crevice passivation-depassivation potential, E -ev, and the IR drop, A/iIR, due to the ion migration through the crevice. Assuming the diffusion current from the crevice bottom to the solution outside, we obtain AEm = icmv x h constant, where crcv is the diffusion-controlled metal dissolution current density at the crevice bottom and h is the crevice depth [62], Since anodic metal dissolution at the crevice bottom follows a Tafel relation, we obtain Eciev as a logarithmic function of the crevice depth ... 

Furthermore, no crevice corrosion will occur in the region where the electrode potential is less positive than the crevice protection potential, Eclcv. Crevice corrosion will cease from growing at... 

FIGURE 22.31 Schematic potential-dimension diagrams for localized corrosion of stainless steel in aqueous solution [63] Epit — pitting potential, ER = pit repassivation potential, Ep = passivation potential in the critical pit solution, Emv — crevice protection potential, rj]13 = critical pit radius for pit repassivation, a = pit repassivation, and b = transition from the polishing mode to the active mode of localized corrosion. 

Cathodic protection can be used to combat crevice corrosion [60, 61], in some cases, with sufficiently low potentials preventing it altogether. It should be noted that anodic protection is generally not effective in preventing crevice corrosion. 

Below the CPP, CT cannot displace adsorbed oxygen so long as the passive film remains intact hence, pitting is predicted not to occur. Should passivity break down because of factors other than those described [e.g., reduced oxygen or depolarizer concentration at a crevice (crevice corrosion), or cathodic polarization of local shielded areas], pitting could then initiate independent of whether the overall prevailing potential is above or below the critical value. But under conditions of uniform passivity for the entire metal surface, application of cathodic protection to avoid pitting corrosion need only shift the potential of the metal below the critical value. This is in contrast to the usual procedure of cathodic protection, which requires polarization of a metal to the much more active open-circuit anode potential. 

Cathodic protection effectively avoids crevice corrosion, provided that the alloy surrounding the crevice is polarized to the open-circuit potential of the active (nonpassive) alloy surface within the crevice. This contrasts with the more lenient requirement of polarizing below the critical potential in order to avoid pit initiation. 

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