Electrochemical computer controlled methods for measuring the corrosion of stainless steel in industrial applications

The corrosion resistance of 316L stainless steel to pitting corrosion in solutions of sulfuric acid has been investigated using American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM) standard method G5 involving computer controlled potentiostatic and potentiodynamic polarization scans. The effects of various ions (Cl-, [SO4]2-, Ni2+, Fe3+) and aeration were studied in terms of pitting potential and correlated to the surface microstructures measured by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). Potentiostatic polarization techniques resulted in pitting potentials closer to the true pitting potential when compared to potentiodynamic results.