Tafel slopes used in monitoring of copper corrosion in a bentonite/groundwater environment

The harmonic analysis, the polarization resistance, and the noise resistance methods have been applied in an effort to monitor corrosion of pure copper in a bentonite/groundwater environment with commercially available equipment. Without the need to use a reference electrode, the first method supplies not only an estimate of the corrosion rate, but also estimates of Tafel slopes required by the other methods. The recorded corrosion rate is overestimated but to a varying degree. While the recorded corrosion rates for the first two methods give quite similar values far below 3 μm/year, the electrochemical noise resistance method gives considerably higher values.