Investigation of 304L stainless steel in a NaCl solution using a microcapillary electrochemical droplet cell: Comparison with conventional electrochemical techniques

In this work a comparison has been made between a localized (micro scale) and a conventional (large-scale) corrosion study of 304L stainless steel in a sodium chloride solution using Tafel plots and electrochemical impedance spectra. Results show the high ability of microelectrochemical techniques for the local investigation of corrosion procedures on solid surfaces, something which is not feasible with conventional large-scale techniques. In the second experiment the microelectrochemical behavior of a faulty copper layer on 304L stainless steel was investigated using linear sweep voltammetry. Glass capillaries touching only small areas of the surface were used and the copper coated surface of the steel sample was scanned in a 9 by 6 matrix (54 measurements) while acquiring data. The obtained corrosion potentials for both defect and intact areas were used to map the surface. The surface plot shows the exact position of the defect point in the coating layer.