中国有色金属学报(英文版)
Transactions of Nonferrous Metals Society of China
| Vol. 16 No. 6 December 2006 |
（1. School of Chemistry and Material Science, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, China;
2. Department of Chemistry, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China;
3. Postdoctoral Station of Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China）
Abstract: The corrosion behavior of pure aluminum in FeCl3 solution was investigated mainly by in-situ AFM (Atomic Force Microscopy). The results of combined researches of AFM, SEM(Scanning Electron Microscopy) and EDAX(Energy Dispersive Analysis of X-ray) show that in addition to uniform attack, pitting corrosion takes place also on pure aluminum surface in FeCl3 solution at open-circuit potential, and impurity elements Fe and Cu are found enriched in corrosion product. In-situ AFM was also used to examine the initiation and development of pitting corrosion of pure aluminum induced by potentiodynamic sweep, and the repassivation of an active pit is observed. AFM tip scratching technique was used to produce a physical defect on metal surface, which is traced by in-situ AFM and it is found that the defect is likely to be preferentially attacked and evolve to pitting corrosion.
Key words: pure aluminum; pitting corrosion; FeCl3 solution; AFM; uniform attack
