Electrochemical and stress corrosion cracking behaviour of titanium in n-propanol and iso-propanol solutions

Abstract

Titanium shows severe localised corrosion in non-aqueous media in the presence of applied stress and crevice. The present work brings a contribution to the behaviour of Ti in non-aqueous media by studying the role of water on the electrochemical properties and stress corrosion cracking (SCC) sensitivity of Ti in n-propanol and iso-propanol solutions. The anodic behaviour of titanium in n-propanol–H 2O and iso-propanol–H 2O systems is quite similar to that observed in methanol–H 2O and ethanol–H 2O systems. The minimum water content needed for the passive film to be stable is 2% for n-propanol and 0.1% for iso-propanol. In methanol and ethanol it is 20 and 8%, respectively. The minimum water content decreases as the number of carbon atoms increases and the lowest water content in iso-propanol is strictly related to the capability of the alcohol to dehydrate. The possibility of predicting by means of polarisation curves the conditions of occurrence of SCC of titanium has been confirmed by simply analysing when corrosion potential is higher than breakdown potential.