Corrosion of cupronickel alloy in permanganate under acidic condition

Cupronickel alloys are used as heat exchanger tube materials in nuclear power plant auxiliary coolant systems. In this work, the corrosion behaviour of cupronickel (70:30) alloy in permanganic acid medium was studied. Corrosion rate was found to follow logarithmic kinetics. Cyclic polarization studies showed that cupronickel did not undergo pitting in permanganic acid medium but uniform corrosion was observed. Presence of 0.43 mol/m3 chromate in 2.5 mol/m3 permanganic acid was found to decrease the corrosion rate of cupronickel by 50%. EIS and XPS studies revealed that the film formed on cupronickel was protective in nature and contained oxides of copper, nickel and manganese (mainly MnOOH). The composition of the film on cupronickel that had undergone chromate treatment also showed similar film except that it contained some chromium (III).