Metal corrosion and its relation to other fields of science

Abstract

Metal corrosion is a charge transfer process. Study of corrosion and corrosion protection requires manifold knowledge in he field of thermodynamics, reaction kinetics, catalysis, transport and surface phenomena. Dealloying, biocorrosion, corrosion effects of electric traction and energy systems are also very important scientific fields for understanding corrosion. Study and knowledge of metal corrosion and corrosion protection is a very important field of modern research and development, because everybody experiences metal corrosion who use appliances made of metals. The man met with metal corrosion at the dawn of human civilization, but the methods of corrosion protection have been developed very slowly, mostly experientially [1][2][3][4]. The methods developed experientially, step by step became scientifically grounded technologies, in fact, certain technologies were developed on the basis of scientifictechnological development (for instance, cathodic protection or electroplating, etc.). The scientific development of bases of corrosion protection technologies is still going on, and for this reason, these methods become simpler and more effective.The technologies used in the industry never rely on the results of only one scientific field, but apply more or less the results of every scientific field by which the technical level of a given technology can be increased [2,3]. This is also true for metal corrosion, also.The scientific, technical and common language name the process metal corrosion, the result of which at first the surface, later the bulk of the metals, in a result of spontaneous reactions with materials of the environment, undergo chemical changes, therefore, the metal corrosion is a chemical, moreover a charge transfer chemical process (which is very often called anodic process), consequently, the main point of metal corrosion is the losing electrons of metals:where Me z+ can be any product of metal corrosion, 'z' is charge transfer number. Losing electrons can take place in wet environment, or in gas phase for we talk about only