Surfaces, Interfaces and their Applications II

Abstract

Introduction to fundamental aspects of degradation induced on materials by (electro)chemical and mechanical interactions. Surface physico-chemical processes on metal/alloys exposed to aggressive environments will be introduced. The different corrosion mechanisms and protection strategies will be presented in combination with a description of experimental methods used for their characterization.

Objective

The students should understand the fundamental mechanisms responsible for the most important corrosion phenomena affecting "classical" industrial relevant metals/alloys and know the limitation in the use of these "standard" materials in aggressive environments. They should also be able to transfer the aquired knowledge about corrosion mechanisms directly in the developments phase of new materials/coatings in order to minimize the corrosive failure risks and increase the sustainability of new industrial products. They finally should know how to approach a corrosion problem/failure and be able to propose the right characterization technique/methodology to investigate each specific corrosion problems.

Content

The most important types of corrosion mechanisms will be presented and discussed during the different lectures. For each specific corrosion phenomenon, the most relevant experimental characterization methods will also be introduced directly after the corrosion part. This combination allows the student to couple theoretical physico-chemical concepts with practical methodologies used in corrosion research. Following topics will be presented: - Thermodynamics related to corrosion processes prediction - Corrosion reaction kinetics / DC electrochemical methods - Passivation and passive film properties / XPS (X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy) and EQCM (Electro-chemical Quartz Crystal Microgravimetry) - Uniform corrosion/Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS)/Magnesium biocorrosion - Galvanic corrosion/AFM-SKPFM (Scanning Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy) - Localized corrosion (pitting)/ Microcell technique - Photoelectrochemistry and Crevice corrosion with description of specific electrochemical setups - Intergranular corrosion and mathematical modelling concepts / Microtomography - Stress corrosion cracking (SCC) / corrosion-fatigue - Selected examples of more "exotic" corrosion mechanisms (Si, Ag, Ta, a.s.o), corrosion protection and surface functionalizing

Resources