Volume 39, Issue 4

An overview of the characterisation of rust by colour is presented. Each distinct rust colour is caused by atmospheric impurities, high or low moisture content and high or low oxygen environment over time. Yellow rust is mainly due to the high moisture environment over a period of time, which drips. Brown rust is dry, crusty and due to water and oxygen contact with localised patches on component surfaces. Black rust, the most stable form, occurs in low moisture and low oxygen environment. The rust residue shows where the reaction started, especially in contact with chlorides. The causative factors of red rust are atmospheric and similar to black rust in a chloride-containing environment. The effect of packaging, manufacturing and environmental factors on rust colour is briefly discussed. Visual characterization of rust could pre-empt root causes and analytical tools for validation. The limitations of these concepts are mentioned and directions for future research highlighted.

Hydrofluoric acid (HF) or fluoride ion corrosion issues are often encountered in many fields, which have attracted extensive research due to its strong corrosiveness. In this paper, a critical review is presented based on recent progress on HF corrosion. In view of the discrepancy of fluoride ion compared with other ions, the special attack characteristics of fluoride ion are firstly discussed. Afterwards, the corrosion mechanisms of stainless steels, nickel-based alloys, and titanium alloys in HF solution or fluoride ion-containing environment are reviewed, and three typical corrosion behaviors are summarized, which are essentially weakening process of passivation of metallic materials. The effects of influencing factors (e.g. alloying elements, environmental factors, and stress, etc.) on HF corrosion are also discussed, which involve changes in passivation mechanism, the influence of HF attack mode and multiple damage mechanisms due to mechanical–chemical coupling. Finally, future research works on HF corrosion are proposed.

Sulfonated graphene/aluminum phosphate (SG/AlPO 4 ) composites were synthesized by precipitation method, and composites with different mass ratios were added to water-based polyurethane (WPU) resins to prepare coatings. According to tests, composites with the addition of 2 wt% composite coating has good anticorrosion performance, and its protection efficiency is increased by 79.6% compared with pure resin. In the early stage of the corrosion, the SG layer forms the barrier. During the corrosion process, the SG layer was destroyed, the phosphate ions decomposed by the exposed spherical AlPO 4 in the corrosive medium and the divalent iron ions on the iron-based surface form a stable precipitation protective layer to achieve the anticorrosion effect. From the EIS test, the coating with 2 wt% composite material has a larger radius of curvature in the Nyquist diagram at different time periods. According to the fitted circuit, it is further confirmed that the precipitation protection layer has a larger resistance value. After soaking for 24 h the resistance value is the largest, which is 1.231 × 104 Ω cm 2 .

Effect of microstructural changes after friction stir processing (FSP) on the corrosion behaviour of rare earth containing QE22 magnesium alloy is studied. FSP produced ultrafine-grained α-Mg matrix and refined the Mg 12 Nd precipitates whereas Mg 12 Nd 2 Ag precipitates got dissolved in the matrix. Although its hardness increased from 76 to 90 VHN, the FSPed alloy displayed inferior corrosion resistance in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution. This is attributed mainly to the iron contamination from FSP and presence of refined second phase particles which work as active cathodic sites. The role of distributed Mg 12 Nd precipitates before and after FSP is analysed from micro galvanic corrosion point of view.

Magnesium alloys have found widespread application as engineering and functional materials in automobile, aerospace, electronics, and biomedical industries. However, these alloys are susceptible to corrosion, and the development of new anticorrosion coatings on Mg alloys surface is urgently needed. In this work, pristine and doped double-layer silane coatings were applied to the AZ91D Mg alloy surface in order to improve its corrosion resistance properties in a 3.5% NaCl solution. The doped silane coatings consisted of KH-550 as the bottom layer and Nd(NO 3 ) 3 -doped bis-(γ-triethoxysilylpropyl)-tetrasulfide (BTESPT) as the top layer. The effect of Nd(NO 3 ) 3 concentration on the corrosion inhibition properties of silane coatings was studied, and the highest corrosion resistance was achieved when the Nd(NO 3 ) 3 concentration was 5 × 10 −3  mol/L. Compared to the pristine coating, the doped coating had enhanced hydrophobicity with a water contact angle of 108° and, to the best of our knowledge, one of the lowest corrosion current densities (1.51 × 10 −2  μA/cm 2 ) reported to date for treated AZ91D. These significant improvements were attributed to the presence of the Si-O-Nd network in the doped coating, leading to the uniform and homogeneous nature and excellent anticorrosion properties of Nd-doped silane coating.

Atmospheric corrosion degrades the mechanical properties of steel structures mainly because of stress concentrations caused by an uneven corrosion topography. Electrolytic corrosion is regarded as one of the most efficient indoor accelerated corrosion approaches, while, the uneven atmospheric corrosion topography usually cannot be well simulated by electrolytic corrosion. This study aims to introduce an electrolytic corrosion solution suitable for simulating atmospheric corrosion. The surface morphologies of the structural steel specimens after electrolytic corrosion in three different solutions under various electrification time and magnitude of the current were compared. The surface characteristics of the corroded steel plates were measured by a 3D noncontact surface topography scanner, and analyzed based on surface roughness theory and fractal theory. The results showed that the mixed solution of 0.5% CH 3 COONa and 0.2% NaCl will produce pitting corrosion on the steel surface, and the surface morphologies of the steel specimens after electrolytic corrosion were consistent with that of neutral salt spray accelerated corrosion test. It is verified that the electrolytic accelerated corrosion in such a solution can simulate actual atmospheric corrosion reasonably.