Corrosion protection

The report by the panel on Corrosion Protection focused on the needs and opportunities for improved corrosion protection in transportation and solar utilities systems. Because of recent advances in the ability to characterize reactive surfaces, and in surface modification methods to moderate or control spontaneous reactions on such surfaces, the Panel proposed that support of both areas will lead to reduced corrosion costs in the future. It was noted that surface modification methods may be divided into either low energy or high energy techniques. Zinc coated (galvanized) steel is an example of the former, whose recent introduction has markedly reduced the incidence and cost of corrosion of automobile body panels. The advances in low energy surface modification methods are complemented by high energy techniques such as ion implantation, sputtering, plasma assisted chemical vapor deposition, and ion cluster beam coating. Very large area substrates may be coated, some on a continuous basis, so that the cost of incorporating high energy modification techniques into manufacturing processes is dropping. Both ex situ and in situ surface characterization methods have recently improved in sophistication and sensitivity. In situ techniques, including tunneling and atomic force microscopy, X-ray techniques, spectroscopic ellipsometry, and near field microscopy, now offer the opportunity to study precursor sites for localized corrosion at unprecedented resolution and in real time. When coupled with new sensors and corrosion monitors, along with modeling of corrosion processes, the advances in surface characterization could facilitate improvements in predictive and accelerated testing of corrosion problems. Accelerated testing is an important tool in corrosion control which is widely used to reduce the cost of corrosion in transportation and solar utility systems. Several recommendations for future work conclude the report.