Potentiostatic oscillations of current and surface structure in a 3D cellular automaton model of metal passivation

Abstract

Some recently obtained data from simulations in our 3D cellular automaton model on metal passivation are presented and discussed. The model is a non-equilibrium heterogeneous Ising-like model with moving boundary due to metal depletion by corrosion. The mobile particles representing metal oxide are produced in corrosion events. They bind to the metal surface and to each other with short range interaction. They diffuse by random walk with asymmetric exclusion and disappear in the bulk solution.The results of this paper are obtained in potentiostatic conditions. In our model, this amounts to a fixed bare metal corrosion rate. The results include current transients and surface snapshots at a number of moments of time. We define several other dynamic variables. Their transients allow us to construct phase portraits, to identify the bare metal surface area and the oxide layer thickness as the essential variables for the oscillations. The first of those is equivalent to current density by model construction. The second plays a peculiar role in periodic current spiking, as discussed in the text.