Study of corrosion behavior of a 22% Cr duplex stainless steel: Influence of nano-sized chromium nitrides and exposure temperature

Chromium nitrides may precipitate in duplex stainless steels during processing and their influence on the corrosion behavior is of great importance for the steel performance. In this study, the influence of nano-sized quenched-in chromium nitrides on the corrosion behavior of a heat treated 2205 duplex stainless steel was investigated at room temperature and 50 °C (just above critical pitting temperature). The microstructure was characterized by SEM/EDS and AFM analyses, and quenched-in nitrides precipitated in the ferrite phase were identified by TEM analysis. Volta potential mapping at room temperature suggests lower relative nobility of the ferrite matrix. Electrochemical polarization and in-situ AFM measurements in 1 M NaCl solution at room temperature show a passive behavior of the steel despite the presence of the quenched-in nitrides in the ferrite phase, and preferential dissolution of ferrite phase occurred only at transpassive conditions. At 50 °C, selective dissolution of the austenite phase was observed, while the ferrite phase with the quenched-in nitrides remained to be stable. It can be concluded that the finely dispersed quenched-in nitrides do not cause localized corrosion, whereas the exposure temperature has a strong influence on the corrosion behavior of the duplex stainless steel.