Chemical perturbation of the passive–active transition state of Fe in a sulfuric acid solution by adding halide ions. Current oscillations and stability of the iron oxide film

Using recurrence plots for the analysis of the nonlinear dynamical response of iron passivation-corrosion processes

Recurrence plots (RPs) and recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) are used in this work to study different nonlinear dynamical regimes emerging in an electrochemical system, namely, the electrodissolution-passivation of iron in chloride-containing sulfuric acid solutions. Current oscillations at different applied potentials and chloride concentrations exhibit bifurcations from periodic to complex (bursting) periodic and aperiodic or chaotic behaviors, associated with different dissolution states of iron. The clarification of these transitions is essential to understand the type of corrosion (uniform or localized) taking place as well as the underlying mechanisms governing the stability of the metal. The RQA reveals that the predictability of the chloride-perturbed Fe|0.75M H₂SO₄ system strongly depends on the chloride concentration and the applied potential. At relatively low chloride concentrations, RQA measures, based on vertical and diagonal structures in RPs, display a decrease upon the breakdown of the passivity on iron and the initiation of localized corrosion (pitting). Phases of pitting corrosion (propagation/growth and unstable pitting) that followed pit initiation are discerned by keen changes of complexity measures upon varying the applied potential. At higher chloride concentrations, the evolution of RQA measures with the potential signifies a transition from the passive-active state dissolution to the polishing state dissolution of iron inside pits. The increase of the applied potential at late stages of pitting corrosion increases the nonlinear correlations and thus the complexity of the system decreases, which corroborates the RQA.

Experimental assessment of the sensitiveness of an electrochemical oscillator towards chemical perturbations

In this study we address the problem of the response of a (electro)chemical oscillator towards chemical perturbations of different magnitudes. The chemical perturbation was achieved by addition of distinct amounts of trifluoromethanesulfonate (TFMSA), a rather stable and non-specifically adsorbing anion, and the system under investigation was the methanol electro-oxidation reaction under both stationary and oscillatory regimes. Increasing the anion concentration resulted in a decrease in the reaction rates of methanol oxidation and a general decrease in the parameter window where oscillations occurred. Furthermore, the addition of TFMSA was found to decrease the induction period and the total duration of oscillations. The mechanism underlying these observations was derived mathematically and revealed that inhibition in the methanol oxidation through blockage of active sites was found to further accelerate the intrinsic non-stationarity of the unperturbed system. Altogether, the presented results are among the few concerning the experimental assessment of the sensitiveness of an oscillator towards chemical perturbations. The universal nature of the complex chemical oscillator investigated here might be used for reference when studying the dynamics of other less accessible perturbed networks of (bio)chemical reactions.

Dynamic sensing of localized corrosion at the metal/solution interface

A Mach-Zehnder interferometer is employed to detect localized corrosion at the metal/solution interface in the potentiodynamic sweep of the iron electrode in solutions. During the electrochemical reactions, local variations of the electrolyte's refractive index, which correlate with the concentration of dissolved species, change the optical path length (OPL) of the object beam when the beam passes through the electrolyte. The distribution of the OPL difference was obtained to present the concentration change of the metal ions visually, which enable direct evidence of corrosion processes. The OPL difference distribution shows localized and general corrosion during the anodic dissolution of the iron electrode in solutions with and without chloride ions, respectively. This method provides an approach for dynamic detection of localized corrosion at the metal/solution interface.

Oscillatory Phenomena during Anodic Copper Electrodissolution in Trifluoroacetic Acid Solution

This work presents the current oscillation phenomena observed in an electrochemical Cu/0.5 M CF3COOH system. The dynamical response of this new oscillator was followed by both current density-potential (j-E) and current density-time (j-t) curves. The current oscillation phenomena of the investigated system were monitored over various potential scan rates and constant applied potentials as control parameters. The increase of potential scan rate significantly decreases both the potential range of current oscillations and the frequency of oscillations. At the j-t curves both the simple and the complex (period adding) oscillations were found. Moreover, with the increase of applied potential, the increase of period of oscillations and current oscillation amplitudes were observed. It appears that the period of current oscillations exponentially grows with applied potential.

Intrinsic coherence resonance in an electrochemical cell

We study the interaction of intrinsic electrochemical noise with autonomous nonlinear dynamics of a three-electrode electrochemical cell. The amplitude of this intrinsic (internal) noise, regulated by the concentration of chloride ions, is monotonically increased and the provoked dynamics is analyzed. The experimentally constructed coherence factor beta versus the concentration of the chloride ions' curve has a unimodal shape indicating the emergence of intrinsic coherence resonance. The abscissa for the maxima of this unimodal curve corresponds to the optimum value of intrinsic noise where maximum regularity of the invoked dynamics is observed.