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Why metals corrode ???

• The driving force that causes metals to corrode is
– a natural consequence of their temporary existence in metallic
form.
– In order to produce metals starting from naturally occurring
minerals and ores, it is necessary to provide a certain amount of
energy.
– It is therefore only natural that when these metals are exposed to
their environments they would revert back to the original state in
which they were found.

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• Iron Cycle
– The primary corrosion product of iron, for example, is Fe(OH)2
(or more likely FeO·nH2O), but the action of oxygen and water
can yield other products having different colors:

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Table 2.1 describes the results of x-ray diffraction of products found on specimens exposed to
real environments where it can be seen that the metals often revert to naturally occurring
mineral forms during the corrosion process

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• Normally, metal grains are so small they
can only be satisfactorily observed with a
microscope. The general range of grain
size usually runs from 25 to 250 μm in
diameter.
• The ASTM grain number (G), is a
convenient way to describe the size of
grains in a material:

• where N is the number of grains per

square inch at a magnification of 100
times.

Grain boundary effects are of little or no consequence in most applications or uses of metals. If a metal
corrodes, uniform attack results since grain boundaries are usually only slightly more reactive than the
matrix. However, under certain conditions, grain interfaces are very reactive and intergranular corrosion
results

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 Acidity and Alkalinity (pH)
• The H+ ion is acid while the OH- ion is alkaline or basic.
• The other ionic portion of an acid or alkali added to water
can increase its conductivity or change other properties of
the liquid, but does not increase or decrease its acidity.
• For instance, whether a given amount of H+ ion is
produced in water by introducing hydrochloric (HCl),
sulfuric (H2SO4), or any other acid is immaterial.
• The pH of the solution will be the same for the same
number of dissolved hydrogen atoms.

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• pH is a measure of the concentration of hydrogen ions.
• it is the negative logarithm of the hydrogen ion (H+)
concentration:

• where log10 is a base-10 logarithm and aH+ is the activity

(related to concentration) of hydrogen ions.
• The “p” stands for the German word for power, potenz,
so pH is an abbreviation for power of hydrogen.

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• Low-pH acid waters accelerate corrosion by supplying
hydrogen ions to the corrosion process.
• Although even absolutely pure water contains some free
hydrogen ions, dissolved carbon dioxide (CO2) in the
water can increase the hydrogen ion concentration.
• Dissolved CO2 may react with water to form carbonic acid
(H2CO3):

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