Electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance corrosion sensor for solid metals and metal alloys - Application to the dissolution of 304 stainless steel

In this paper, a new corrosion sensor based on a quartz crystal microbalanc e is presented. A 50 mum thick disk of solid metal is glued directly on the surface of a 2 MHz AT-cut quartz crystal. An electronic oscillator designe d for highly damped quartz resonators allows the resonance frequency of the quartz-glue sample system to be followed. Simultaneous electrochemical mea surements are possible as the metal sample can be polarized. The mass sensi tivity of this electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance was determined b y carrying out a copper electrodeposition directly on the sample surface. T he potentiostatic dissolution of 304 stainless steel in 1 M HCl is discusse d in this paper. The mass loss during potentiostatic dissolution was measur ed by the frequency shift of the microbalance sensor and compared to the ma ss loss calculated from Faraday's law. A very good agreement was found as b oth results had a relative difference lower than 5%. (C) 2001 The Electroch emical Society.