Selective dissolution in binary alloys

Corrosion is an important issue in the design of engineering alloys. De-alloying is an aspect of alloy corrosion related to the selective dissolution of one or more of the components in an alloy. The work reported herein focuses on the topic of de-alloying specific to single-phase binary noble metal alloy systems. The alloy systems investigated were gold-silver and gold-copper.; The onset of a bulk selective dissolution process is typically marked by a critical potential whereby the more reactive component in the alloy begins dissolving from the bulk, leading to the formation of a bi-continuous solid-void morphology. The critical potential was investigated for the entire composition range of gold-silver alloys. The results presented herein include the formulation of an expression for critical potential as a function of both alloy and electrolyte composition.; Results of the first investigation of underpotential deposition (UPD) on alloys are also presented herein. These results were implemented as an analytical tool to provide quantitative measurements of the surface evolution of gold during de-alloying.; The region below the critical potential was investigated in terms of the compositional evolution of the alloy surface. Below the critical potential, there is a competition between the dissolution of the more reactive alloying constituent (either silver or copper) and surface diffusion of gold that serves to cover dissolution sites and prevent bulk dissolution. By holding the potential at a prescribed value below the critical potential, a time-dependent gold enrichment occurs on the alloy surface leading to passivation. A theoretical model was developed to predict the surface enrichment of gold based on the assumption of layer-by-layer dissolution of the more reactive alloy constituent. The UPD measurements were used to measure the time-dependent surface gold concentration and the results agreed with the predictions of the theoretical model.