TY - JOUR
T1 - Impedance spectroscopy and microstructural characterization of the corrosion behavior of FeCrAl alloy in lead-bismuth eutectic
AU - Chen, Xiang
AU - Haasch, Rick
AU - Stubbins, James F.
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was funded by the US Department of Energy’s, Office of Nuclear Energy’s, Nuclear Energy Research Initiative (NERI) under the Contract DE-FC07-051D14667. Some experiments were carried out in part in the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory Central Facilities, University of Illinois, which are partially supported by the US Department of Energy under Grants DE-FG02-07ER46453 and DE-FG02-07ER46471.
PY - 2012/12
Y1 - 2012/12
N2 - The corrosion behavior of FeCrAl alloy in Lead-Bismuth Eutectic (LBE) saturated with oxygen at 550 °C was investigated. Impedance Spectroscopy (IS) measurement was made continuously on one specimen during the entire LBE exposure test to characterize the corrosion kinetics. Various microanalysis techniques, including SEM, EDS, XRD, AES, and XPS were used to analyze the corrosion products of post-exposure specimens. It was found that a very thin, adherent alumina oxide layer formed on the specimen surface and was able to protect the alloy from the corrosion attack in LBE. The thickness of the alumina surface layer increased very slowly with time reaching about 837 nm in average thickness after exposure for 3600-h in LBE. The IS measurements match the microanalysis results in three respects: first, a non-zero impedance measurement agrees with the existence of a continuous surface oxide layer; second, a general increase of the impedance was observed during the real-time IS measurement which means that the IS measurements reflect the growth rate of the oxide layer; and third, the oxide film thickness derived from the IS data compares favorably with the SEM film thickness measurements which establishes the validity of using IS to monitor the real-time corrosion kinetics of alloys in LBE.
AB - The corrosion behavior of FeCrAl alloy in Lead-Bismuth Eutectic (LBE) saturated with oxygen at 550 °C was investigated. Impedance Spectroscopy (IS) measurement was made continuously on one specimen during the entire LBE exposure test to characterize the corrosion kinetics. Various microanalysis techniques, including SEM, EDS, XRD, AES, and XPS were used to analyze the corrosion products of post-exposure specimens. It was found that a very thin, adherent alumina oxide layer formed on the specimen surface and was able to protect the alloy from the corrosion attack in LBE. The thickness of the alumina surface layer increased very slowly with time reaching about 837 nm in average thickness after exposure for 3600-h in LBE. The IS measurements match the microanalysis results in three respects: first, a non-zero impedance measurement agrees with the existence of a continuous surface oxide layer; second, a general increase of the impedance was observed during the real-time IS measurement which means that the IS measurements reflect the growth rate of the oxide layer; and third, the oxide film thickness derived from the IS data compares favorably with the SEM film thickness measurements which establishes the validity of using IS to monitor the real-time corrosion kinetics of alloys in LBE.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jnucmat.2011.11.016
DO - 10.1016/j.jnucmat.2011.11.016
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84868699056
SN - 0022-3115
VL - 431
SP - 125
EP - 132
JO - Journal of Nuclear Materials
JF - Journal of Nuclear Materials
IS - 1-3
ER -