Electrochemical and passivation behavior investigation of ferritic stainless steel in simulated concrete pore media.

Abstract

The applications of stainless steel are one of the most reliable solutions in concrete structures to reduce chloride-induced corrosion problems and increase the structures service life, however, due to high prices of nickel, especially in many civil engineering projects, the austenitic stainless steel is replaced by the ferritic stainless steels. Compared with austenite stainless steel, the ferritic stainless steel is known to be extremely resistant of stress corrosion cracking and other properties. The good corrosion resistance of the stainless steel is due to the formation of passive film. While, there is little literature about the electrochemical and passive behavior of ferritic stainless steel in the concrete environments. So, here, we present the several corrosion testing methods, such as the potentiodynamic measurements, EIS and Mott–Schottky approach, and the surface analysis methods like XPS and AES to display the passivation behavior of 430 ferritic stainless steel in alkaline solution with the presence of chloride ions. These research results illustrated a simple and facile approach for studying the electrochemical and passivation behavior of stainless steel in the concrete pore environments.