Chemical & Process Technology: Pitting Corrosion - Mechanism & Pre...

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Pitting Corrosion on Metal Surface

Pitting is one of the most destructive forms of corrosion as it will potential cause equipment
failures due to perforation / penetration. pitting generally occurs on metal surfaces
protected by oxide film such as Stainless steel, aluminum, etc. Typically for boiler and feed
water system, pitting corrosion rate increase dramatically with the increase of oxygen
content in the fluid.

Pitting can occur in any metal surfaces. Following are some pictures of pitting corrosion.

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Pitting corrosion on external pipe surface

Pitting corrosion on external pipe surface

Rust Prevention
Chloride Metals
C 276 Corrosion
Removing Oxygen
Water Prevention

H2S Pitting corrosion on internal pipe surface

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Co2 Pitting corrosion on internal pipe surface

Mechanism
Lets look at figure below, oxygen rich fluid in contact with metal surface (at the top of the
pit) will becomes the cathode. At the bottom of the pit, low in oxygen level becomes the
anode. this will form a complete circuit where metal at the pit (FE) will be ionized to release
electron (e) and form ion Ferum (FE2+), this electron will travel to the top of pit to react with
Oxygen (O2) (and water, H2O) to form ion hydroxides (OH-). Ion Ferum (FE2+) will react
with ion hydroxides (OH-) to form Ferum Oxide (Fe2O3) which typically a brown rust.
Deeper the pit leeser the oxygen content and higher the potential and pitting corrosion rate.

Severity of pitting corrosion

Knowing that pitting can cause failure due to perforation while the total corrosion, as
measured by weight lossm might be rather minimal, experience shown that rate of
penetration may be 10 to 100 times that by general corrosion, pitting corrosion has been
considered to be more dangerous than the uniform corrosion damage because it is
very difficult to detect, predict and design against. General metal weight loss method
almost impossible to detect the internal pitting corrosion.

Pitting corrosion shape

Pits formed due to pitting corrosion can become wide and shallow or narrow and deep
which can rapidly perforate the wall thickness of a metal. Following picture demonstrate
several types of pitting corrosion shape. This has made it even more difficult to be detected
especially undercutting, subsuface and horizontal type.

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Preventive measures
There are several preventive approah to avoid pitting. There are :

z Proper material selection e.g. SS316 with molydenum having higher pitting
resistance compare to SS304
z Use higher alloys (ASTM G48) for increased resistance to pitting corrosion
z Control oxygen level by injecting oxygen scavenger in boiler water system
z Control pH, chloride concentration and temperature
z Cathodic protection and/or Anodic Protection
z Proper monitoring of oxygen & chloride contents by routine sampling
z Agitation of stagnant fluid

Related Topics

z Chloride stress corrosion cracking and use of correct MOC for seawater
z How Chloride stress corrosion cracking Lookslike ?
z Unified Numbering System for Metals and Alloys

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Labels: Corrosion, Corrosion Resistance Material, Material, Pitting

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