Electrochemical chloride extraction from contaminated concrete structures using anodic nickel electrode

Abstract

ABSTRACT An attempt was made, at the laboratory level, to apply new external anode of an electrochemical chloride extraction (ECE) system based on Ni chemical deposition on concrete specimen surface. The procedure relied on electroless bath chemical deposition to apply anodic electrode of nickel on concrete samples. The procedures and experimental conditions of the nickel deposition on the concrete were carefully addressed. The influence of Ni films characteristics, as external anode in ECE system, on the chloride electrochemical extraction (ECE) process was investigated. ECE performance in comparison with the use of traditional titanium mesh was investigated. Several analytical tools were applied to both characterise the obtained Ni films and to study the efficiency of ECE process. These include scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to explore the morphology of the nickel films and the electron probe micro analysis (EPMA) that was performed simultaneously with SIM to gain composition analysis of the samples. Finally, chloride ion selective electrode (ISE) analytical tool was applied to study the efficiency of ECE process.