A microelectrochemical cell housed in an optical microscope and custom-made accessories have been designed and fabricated, which allows performing spatially resolved corrosion measurements. The cell assembly was designed to directly integrate the reference electrode close to the capillary tip to avoid air bubbles. A hard disk along with an old optical microscope was re-engineered into a microgrinder, which made the vertical grinding of glass capillary tips very easy. A stepper motor was customized into a microsyringe pump to dispense a controlled volume of electrolyte through the capillary. A force sensitive resistor was used to achieve constant wetting area. The functionality of the developed instrument is demonstrated by studying μ-electrochemical behavior of worn surface on AA2014-T6 alloy. © 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.

Lakshman Neelakantan

Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering

Viswanathan Rajan

STEPPING MOTORS

CONTROLLED VOLUME

CORROSION MEASUREMENTS

Electrochemical behaviors

FORCE SENSITIVE RESISTORS

GLASS CAPILLARIES

MICRO-ELECTROCHEMICAL CELLS

Reference electrodes

Spatially resolved

Microscopes

IIT Madras is a public technical and research university located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Founded in 1959, it is recognised as an Institute of National Importance.

IIT Madras has been ranked as the top engineering institute in India for four years in a row by the National Institutional Ranking Framework of the MHRD

It currently offers undergraduate, postgraduate and research degrees across 16 disciplines in Engineering, Sciences, Humanities and Management. About 596 faculty belonging to science and engineering departments and centres of the Institute are engaged in teaching, research and industrial consultancy.

IIT Madras

Note: Design and fabrication of a simple versatile microelectrochemical cell and its accessories.

Review of Scientific Instruments

In this short communication, we study the electrochemical behavior of an individual Al2Cu intermetallic phase (coexisting with α-Al) in 0.1 M NaCl solution (with and without inhibitor) using droplet cell microscopy (DCM). The influence of CeCl3 (250 ppm) addition to the electrolyte is studied through potentiodynamic polarization (DC method). The results suggest that the addition of CeCl3 retards the cathodic reaction rate, thereby decreasing the corrosion rate. This study also highlights on the stability of the system, which is essential to perform local electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (LEIS) using DCM. Fabrication of a proper silicone rubber gasket at the flat capillary tip is important to achieve reproducibility, in order to use DCM in contact mode (as confined droplet). The stability and linearity of the system is proved by sweeping frequencies in both directions and by performing Kramers-Kronig transformation (KKT), respectively. LEIS reveals a charge transfer resistance of 2.83 kΩ cm2 as an effect of inhibitor addition, whereas the charge transfer resistance is 1.9 kΩ cm2 in 0.1 M NaCl solution. © 2016, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry

On the corrosion behavior of Al2Cu by local electrochemical impedance spectroscopy using droplet cell microscopy

Conventional electrochemical measurements have been carried out using droplet cell microscopy for local area studies. This study overcomes the limitation of knowing accurately the exposed area and is proved by investigating the rough surface induced by wear. The galvanostatic pulse technique is used to determine the time constant which is independent of the area and also gives an indication of the corrosion rate. Worn and unworn surfaces of AA2014 in 0.1 M NaCl solution have been compared and the potential decay was faster for a worn surface than an unworn surface. © 2016 The Electrochemical Society.

Journal of the Electrochemical Society

Communication - Local electrochemical study using droplet cell microscopy on a rough surface

The current investigation proposes a novel method for simultaneous assessment of the electrochemical and structural fatigue properties of nickel-titanium shape memory alloy (NiTi SMA) wires. The design and layout of an in situ electrochemical cell in a custom-made bending rotation fatigue (BRF) test rig is presented. This newly designed test rig allows performing a wide spectrum of experiments for studying the influence of fatigue on corrosion and vice versa. This can be achieved by performing ex situ andor in situ measurements. The versatility of the combined electrochemicalmechanical test rig is demonstrated by studying the electrochemical behavior of NiTi SMA wires in 0.9 NaCl electrolyte under load. The ex situ measurements allow addressing various issues, for example, the influence of pre-fatigue on the localized corrosion resistance, or the influence of hydrogen on fatigue life. Ex situ experiments showed that a pre-fatigued wire is more susceptible to localized corrosion. The synergetic effect can be concluded from the polarization studies and specifically from an in situ study of the open circuit potential (OCP) transients, which sensitively react to the elementary repassivation events related to the local failure of the oxide layer. It can also be used as an indicator for identifying the onset of the fatigue failure. © 2013 American Institute of Physics.

Fulltext

Design and fabrication of a bending rotation fatigue test rig for in situ electrochemical analysis during fatigue testing of NiTi shape memory alloy wires

Corrosion Science

Multi-element-resolved electrochemical corrosion analysis. Part I. Dissolution behavior and passivity of amorphous Fe50Cr15Mo14C15B6

Microcapillary electrochemical droplet cells: applications in solid-state surface analysis

Scanning droplet cell for high throughput electrochemical and photoelectrochemical measurements

An in situ tensile tester for studying electrochemical repassivation behavior: Fabrication and challenges

Note: Design and fabrication of a simple versatile microelectrochemical cell and its accessories

Journal	Data powered by TypesetReview of Scientific Instruments
Publisher	Data powered by TypesetAmerican Institute of Physics Inc.
ISSN	00346748
Open Access	No