Abstract
Atmospheric corrosion involves chemical, electrochemical, and physical processes in three phases (solid, liquid, and gas) and two interfaces (solid/liquid and liquid/gas). Because of inherent experimental and conceptual difficulties, scientific efforts to characterize this highly complex interfacial regime came relatively late into the field. With the access and development of surface and interface sensitive analytical techniques, it has lately become possible to perform molecular in situ analyses of the interfaces involved in atmospheric corrosion. This lecture presents some highlights from our fundamental research in atmospheric corrosion, performed at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. It includes results from the most recent efforts in our research group to provide a molecular understanding of the interfacial regime that governs atmospheric corrosion. Using copper or zinc as substrate and carboxylic acid as corrosion stimulator in the humidity-containing atmosphere, results have been obtained with particular emphasis on probing the metal oxide/water interface (by infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy (IRAS) combined with the quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and sum frequency generation (SFG)) and the water/gas interface (by SFG), respectively. While research in atmospheric corrosion traditionally has aimed at understanding how the environment influences the metal, the opposite question- how the metal influences the environment during atmospheric corrosion- may be of equally technical importance. Some examples of on-going research on new environmental aspects of atmospheric corrosion of zinc will also be presented.
Highlights
Atmospheric corrosion was for most of the 20th century a subject of engineering study, largely with empirical approaches
Of the most important atmospheric corrosion processes. The intent of this lecture is to provide results from ongoing activities aiming at a more molecular understanding of atmospheric corrosion. These activities are based on earlier developments in the research group at the Royal Institute of Technology of in situ analysis of the metal/atmosphere interfacial regime based on four independent techniques, namely infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy (IRAS, monitors the surface chemistry during atmospheric corrosion) [1], quartz crystal microbalance (QCM, integrated with infrarrojo de absorción-reflexión (IRAS), monitors changes in mass) [2], atomic force microscopy (AFM, displays surface topography changes) [3] and sum frequency generation (SFG, reveals molecular information from the solid/liquid or the liquid/gas interface) [4]
In order to explore the relative importance of the phases and interfaces involved in atmospheric corrosion, the transformation of acetaldehyde to acetic acid/acetate has been studied from an atmospheric corrosion perspective, either through analysis of the solid/liquid interface (IRAS, using zinc as substrate exposed to the aqueous adlayer) or the liquid/gas interface (SFG, using a water solution rather than the aqueous adlayer as substrate exposed to the gas) [6]
Summary
Atmospheric corrosion involves chemical, electrochemical, and physical processes in three phases (solid, liquid, and gas) and two interfaces (solid/liquid and liquid/gas). With the access and development of surface and interface sensitive analytical techniques, it has lately become possible to perform molecular in situ analyses of the interfaces involved in atmospheric corrosion. This lecture presents some highlights from our fundamental research in atmospheric corrosion, performed at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. It includes results from the most recent efforts in our research group to provide a molecular understanding of the interfacial regime that governs atmospheric corrosion. Corrosión atmosférica; Cobre; Cinc; Ácidos carboxílicos; Análisis in-situ; Intercaras
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