Corrosion inhibition of stainless steel type AISI 304 by Mn coating and subsequent annealing with flow of nitrogen at different temperatures

This work reports the enhancement of stainless steel corrosion resistance coated with Mn and post-annealed with flow of nitrogen at different annealing temperatures. Crystallographic variation of the samples by annealing temperature is studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD) while their surface morphology and surface roughness was obtained by means of atomic force microscope (AFM) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) analyses before and after corrosion test respectively. Elemental analysis of samples after corrosion test was investigated by energy dispersive spectroscope (EDS) analysis. The corrosion behaviour of the samples was evaluated by potentiodynamic polarization test in 0.6 M NaCl solution. A critical annealing temperature is found at which the highest corrosion resistance can be achieved. Correlation between corrosion resistance, structural and surface morphology results is obtained.