Technical Note: Syringe Cell for Electrochemical Testing

Abstract

A very simple electrochemical cell for corrosion experiments has been developed using a syringe as the cell with the syringe plunger replaced by reference and counter electrodes. Because the exposed area is defined by a hanging droplet, no masking is required and thus no crevice corrosion forms. This cell therefore enables measurements of pitting potentials of metals that are susceptible to crevice corrosion. The method was validated by cyclic potentiodynamic polarization experiments on Type 304H stainless steel. Crevice or interfacial corrosion was not evident in multiple replicate specimens tested with the syringe cell method.

A double‐mode cell to measure pitting and crevice corrosion

“…This method does not need to control the water leaking on the sample surface from the edge, and thus it is simpler and easier than the method described in the ASTM G150‐13 standard. It further supports Panindre et al's [ ] results.…”

“…The syringe cell had a tube attached to the syringe head. The gap between the syringe “mouth” (i.e., the bottom open end of the tube) and the sample surface was adjustable, which was different from the previous setups . The most significant improvement of this syringe cell was the use of an environment chamber to maintain the environmental relative humidity (RH) and suppress the water evaporation from the droplet between the syringe “mouth” and the working electrode.…”

“…This application was recently realized by Panindre et al, who developed a syringe cell to measure the pitting potential of a passivated steel. In that syringe cell, the plunger was removed and a reference electrode and a Pt wire counter electrode were fixed inside the syringe.…”

The effect of bird droppings on the corrosion of steel and aluminum used in offshore applications

“…A syringe was modified to fit a reference electrode and a platinum wire counter electrode through the rubber gasket of the syringe, based on a design published in the literature, [27] which in turn is based on previous scanning droplet cell designs. [28,29] The reference electrode was an Ag/AgCl/KCl (sat.…”

Corrosion of Ni-Fe-Cr-Mo-W-X Multi-Principal Element Alloys

“…Therefore, a syringe cell, as described elsewhere, was used for electrochemical testing to avoid artifacts due to crevice corrosion. 60 The nominal area exposed to the syringe electrolyte varied between 0.15 cm 2 and 0.20 cm 2 from experiment to experiment and was accurately determined after each experiment using image analysis of the exposed area. A Gamry Instruments REF600 potentiostat was used to collect data.…”