Results and Discussion

mm cm
Diameter 2,1 0,21
Length 72,36 7,236
Length immersed 25,61 2,561

Weight (g) 1,9465

Surface contact (cm2) 1,758852
Volume (cm3) 0,250627
Density (g/cm3) 7,766536

Tafel plot results

Ecorr (V) -1,1521
Icorr (uA) 85,467
beta c (V) 0,084
beta a (V) 0,1626

Polarization resistance results

Intercept Slope Statistics
Value Error Value Error Adj. R-Square
-2,02199 4,02E-16 1,00E-04 1,45E-18 1
“Corrosion potential is a mixed potential (also an open-circuit potential or rest potential) at which
the rate of anodic dissolution of the electrode equals the rate of cathodic reactions and there is no
net current flowing in or out of the electrode. Corrosion current is the dissolution current at the
corrosion potential.”

This means corrosion potential (Ecorr) represents the rates of anode and cathode processes when
are in equilibrium under certain conditions and the net measured current is zero because as we
mentioned there is an equilibrium, however the corrosion current is not zero but the potentiostat
measures the net current, as it is the sum of oxidation and reduction current and both have the
same value but opposite signs, the resulting value is zero. The corrosion potential is an important
value because it is the reference which use to delimit the ranges of potential applies in the
electrochemical analyses.

In the Figure (***) is shown the Potential vs Time in order to calculate Ecorr, the obtained value was
-0.9988 V, however that measure it not too exact because the measurement need a long time to
achieve the correct value in a equilibrium and in the practice the time was only seven minutes, this
is shown in the Figure (***) where there is a short sloop and the value continues changing.

In the Tafel diagram (Figure (**)) the Icorr is calculated from the extrapolation of linear portion of
the curves to Ecorr. In this graph we can obtain the Tafel constants (betas) which are the slope of
linear portion of curves. The value of Ecorr calculated in Tafel diagram is different of the value
calculated in open circuit potential diagram (OCP) because the total equilibrium in OCP was not
achieved by shortage time and the Tafel diagram give a more confident value of Ecorr that was
-1.1521 V. According to Abdel Hamid, Abdel, Hassan and Shaaban (2010) the value of experimental
Ecorr for a galvanized steel is -1.187 V and our value if Ecorr is near to this value (-1.1521 V), in the
case of Icorr their reported value was 86 µA and the value of this experiment was 85.467 µA. The
reason of difference of both values is produced by the concentration on supporting analyte because
they use 5% NaCl and this experiment was performed with a 3.5% NaCl concentration. Figure (***)
and Figure (***) show the same behavior and similar values that we can infer that our metal was
galvanized steel.

The Figure (***) shows the polarization resistance diagram is useful to measure the corrosion rates
and other possible way to calculate the Icorr by the Formula ***. For these calculation, Tafel
constants are needed.

In the case of corrosion penetration rate (CPR) can be calculated by the Formula ***. As this
experiment uses short ranges it behaves as straight line and its slope is the potential resistance
value, that gave 1E-4 v/s.

The value of CPR of the experiment was 22.72 mpy. According to the American galvanizers
association the CPR for galvanized steel is 23 mpy, so, as the above results, the experimental value
is close to the tabulated.
In the Figure (***) we can see the potentiodynamic Polarization diagram of galvanized steel,
The Ecorr value obtained was -0.99, however it was not so accurate because is necessary to let the
process reach the equilibrium, but we just waited 7 minutes.

Tafel plot have a better approximation of the Ecorr and Icorr, because contrasted to literature, the
values were similar, such as the case of Icorr, the in this experiment was 85.467 uA and the tabulated
was 86 uA.

With polarization resistance, was possible to calculate the CPR, giving a value of 22.72 mpy.

In the case of potentiodynamic polarization, the graph showed that this alloy does not have a
passivation region. In this part of the experiment, a high oxidation was seen, because not only the
zinc recovering was oxidized, but the iron too. The result was that the solution had a yellow and
green color compounds that we assume were ferrous solutions.

As all the experimental values coincided with the tabulated, it was possible to conclude that our
metal was a galvanized steel, because at the beginning we just assumed it.