Electrochemical Techniques for Corrosion and Tribocorrosion Monitoring: Methods for the Assessment of Corrosion Rates

The corrosion mechanism taking place in an aqueous phase with or without mechanical contact is electrochemical in nature. The electrochemical signal is one of the primary sources of information that relates to behavior in potential, current, and electrical charge of a corroding electrode. It arises from processes that cause corrosion and other electrochemical reactions. In a sliding contact in an ionic electrolyte medium, electrochemistry is more likely to interfere with the tribological behavior of tribocorrosion systems. In recent years, attempts by researchers have been made to control the material loss by electrochemical methods for various engineering systems. Applied online for monitoring in-situ uniform, localized, galvanic, or more forms of corrosion, such techniques are very convenient means to measure corrosion rate of materials. Such methods can also be used in different ways to evaluate their ability to protect materials (as inhibitors, protective layers, coatings). In this chapter, theoretical and experimental applications, fundamental aspects, limits of the electrochemical techniques for corrosion, and tribocorrosion monitoring are presented. Standards developed, so far, by various standardization organizations are reported. Fundamentals of traditional and advanced corrosion methods are described, focusing on their advantages, i.e. sensitivity to low corrosion rates, short experimental duration, and well-established theoretical understanding.