title: Atomic-scale decoration for improving the pitting corrosion resistance of austenitic stainless steels.
abstract: Stainless steels are susceptible to the localized pitting corrosion that leads to a huge loss to our society. Studies in the past decades confirmed that the pitting events generally originate from the local dissolution in MnS inclusions which are more or less ubiquitous in stainless steels. Although a recent study indicated that endogenous MnCr2O4 nano-octahedra within the MnS medium give rise to local nano-galvanic cells which are responsible for the preferential dissolution of MnS, effective solutions of restraining the cells from viewpoint of electrochemistry are being tantalizingly searched. Here we report such a galvanic corrosion can be greatly resisted via bathing the steels in Cu(2+)-containing solutions. This chemical bath generates Cu(2-δ)S layers on the surfaces of MnS inclusions, invalidating the nano-galvanic cells. Our study provides a low-cost approach via an atomic scale decoration to improve the pitting corrosion resistance of stainless steels in a volume-treated manner.
authors.affiliation: 1] Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wenhua Road 72, 110016 Shenyang, China [2].
authors.forename: Y T
authors.initials: YT
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: 1] Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wenhua Road 72, 110016 Shenyang, China [2].
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: 1] Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wenhua Road 72, 110016 Shenyang, China [2].
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wenhua Road 72, 110016 Shenyang, China.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wenhua Road 72, 110016 Shenyang, China.
authors.forename: X Y
authors.initials: XY
authors.lastname: San
authors.affiliation: Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wenhua Road 72, 110016 Shenyang, China.
authors.forename: X L
authors.initials: XL
authors.lastname: Ma