Will It Rust? A Set of Simple Demonstrations Illustrating Iron Corrosion Prevention Strategies at Sea

Abstract

Corrosion of metal, especially iron, is a natural electrochemical process that costs billions of dollars every year. Educating college and precollege students, our future STEM professionals, about the chemistry that governs corrosion and its prevention strategies is of paramount importance. In this manuscript, we share a few simple iron corrosion-related activities developed into a demonstration video that helped celebrate the 2021 National Chemistry Week and was used to accompany general chemistry lectures on electrochemistry. These easy-to-setup activities with clear and dramatic effects effectively demonstrated concepts of equilibria including Le Chatelier’s principle, buffers, oxidation and reduction potentials, and factors such as metal coupling, salinity, pH, and temperature that impact rusting and its inhibition. These demonstration activities, with an emphasis on maritime applications, may also be adapted for precollege science camps or chemistry laboratories.