Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Corrosion

As the metals like steel, ceremic, iron etc are greatly affected by environmental chemical reaction or by natural process, this cause the degrdation of metals or metal destruction. This degradation is known as corrosion. The corrosion of metals result destroys metals and their properties.

Corrosion Materials are the main reason for this degradation process and they are toxic in nature. They can easily attack on metal surface and alter their strength. For example the corrosion of steel is done by seawater. Similar rusting of iron is also due to corrosion because in this degradation process, the iron gets oxidized into ferric oxide Fe2O3 and the color of iron surface changes from black to yellow to orange. The process of rusting of iron takes place in some steps. First the iron gets oxidized into ferrous ions and then these ferrous ions again undergo loss of electrons and oxidize into ferric ions [Fe (III)]. This oxidation occurs due to the presence of water and oxygen. The ferric ions then react with oxygen atom and produce ferric oxide which again reacts with water and hydration reaction takes place. The whole process can be represented by a simple chemical reaction that is mentioned below;
4Fe+2 (aq) + 3O2 (g) + 2 H2O  ?  2Fe2O3.H2O

The rusting process is greatly affected by some salts and also enhanced with moisture environment. The rate of the degradation increases with increasing the moisture level.

So if we discuss that what is Corrosion then we can easily explained this process by taking the above example of iron rusting. The corrosion is classified in various categories that depend on the environmental conditions of metals, the chemical changes, and also with material type. It can be like uniform, galvanic, pitting corrosion, stress corrosion, fatigue, inter-granular corrosion, crevice corrosion, fili-form corrosion, erosion corrosion, fretting corrosion etc.

The methods that are used to control the corrosion are known as corrosion control process. For controlling this process some methods like cathodic protection in which impressed current and sacrificial anode are used. Similar Corrosion inhibitors are used to control corrosion. These are chemicals that are used to control environmental conditions and thus reduce the corrosives. Some chemicals like hexylamine, sodium benzoate, oxidising agents like chromate, lead, nitrite, amines, and thio-urea are worked as corrosion inhibitors. Today’s the manufacturing process is done in such a way to increase the inherent capacity of any material for preventing the harmful effect of corrosion. All of the other methods of corrosion control should be considered in the design process. Protective coating on materials is also used to prevent corrosion.

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