The anodic behavior of amorphous Ni-19P alloys in different amorphous states

Abstract

An amorphous Ni-19P alloy prepared by rapid quenching of white heat melt showed a higher anodic dissolution current density in 1 N HCl in comparison with the same amorphous alloy prepared by rapid quenching of red heat melt. After structural relaxation these two specimens showed the same anodic polarization curve which is located between the polarization curves of as-quenched two specimens. The thermograms of these two as-quenched specimens were different from each other, showing that the difference in the amorphous states is due to the difference in structural relaxation during preparation. The difference in anodic behavior between these two as-quenched specimens seems due to the difference in the amounts of quenched-in defects. The higher current density of the relaxed specimen in comparison with the as-quenched specimen prepared by rapid quenching of the red heat melt has been interpreted in terms of introduction of chemical heterogeneity as a result of rearrangement and regroupings of atoms in the alloy during structural relaxation. The steady state current density was fairly low in the low potential region without showing a difference between two as-quenched specimens and then increased with increasing polarization potential. The difference in the quality of as-quenched alloy specimens seemed to be masked by the formation of phosphorus-covered alloy surfaces during anodic polarization at potentials lower than about 200 mV(SCE), because of a negligibly small dissolution rate constant of phosphorus in comparison with that of nickel.