Effect of copper ions implantation on corrosion behavior of zircaloy-2 in 1 M H2SO4

In order to study the effect of copper ion implantation on the aqueous corrosion behavior of zircaloy-2, specimens were implanted with copper ions with fluence ranging from 1 × 10−16 to 1 × 10−17 ions cm−2, using a metal vapor vacuum arc source (MEVVA) at an extraction voltage of 40 kV. The valence states and depth distributions of elements in the surface layer of the samples were analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), respectively. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was used to examine the microstructure of the copper-implanted samples. The potentiodynamic polarization technique was employed to evaluate the aqueous corrosion resistance of implanted zircaloy-2 in a 1 M H2SO4 solution. It was found that a significant improvement was achieved in the aqueous corrosion resistance of zircaloy-2 implanted with copper ions compared with as-received zircaloy-2. The corrosion resistance of implanted samples declined with increasing the fluence. Finally, the mechanism of the corrosion behavior of copper-implanted zircaloy-2 was discussed.