Monitoring localised corrosion in inhibited solutions using wire beam electrode–noise signatures method

Abstract

The objective of this work is to determine the nature of localised corrosion in inhibited solutions by establishing possible relationships between characteristic features in electrochemical noise and corrosion processes using an electrochemically integrated multielectrode system, namely the wire beam electrode (WBE) in combination with noise signatures method. Experiments have been carried out to simultaneously measure electrode potential noise and WBE current distribution maps from stainless steel (SS316L) WBE exposed to inhibited solutions containing 6%FeCl₃ solution with inorganic inhibitors including 2 wt-% sodium chromate (Na₂CrO₄), cerium chloride (CeCl₃) and lanthanum chloride (LaCl₃). Characteristic electrochemical noise signatures were found to correlate with characteristic changes in WBE current distribution maps that show corrosion rates distributions and the degree of localised corrosion. A new concept namely localisation parameter (LP) has been proposed to identify the degree of inhibition. Na₂CrO₄ effectively inhibited the pitting corrosion process and the LP successively decreased through out the corrosion process. With the presence of CeCl₃ and LaCl₃, pits on stainless steel in 6%FeCl₃ solution were not repassivated and an increase in the LP was observed for both inhibitors. The results suggest that the WBE method could be used in combination with the noise signatures as a sensitive technique for monitoring inhibiting effect on localised corrosion.