A new method to improve the corrosion resistance of titanium for hydrometallurgical applications

The main objective of the present work was to develop a method to fabricate titanium oxide films with high corrosion resistance by controlled chemical oxidation with H2O2 solutions at 90 °C. The prepared chemically oxidized films (COFs) were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements and found to be a mixture of anatase and rutile or pure rutile, depending mainly on the presence of Cl− and SO42− in H2O2 solutions. XRD results indicated that the addition of SO42− ions promoted the formation of anatase; while the addition of Cl− ions favored the formation of rutile. Linear polarization resistance and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements were used to evaluate the corrosion resistance of the as grown COFs for hydrometallurgical applications. Results verified that chemical oxidation with H2O2 solutions is capable of improving the corrosion resistance of Ti for hydrometallurgical applications. Chemical oxidation with 2 M H2O2/0.1 M HCl solution led to the best improvement of the corrosion resistance of Ti.