The effect of time evolution and timing of the electrochemical data recording of corrosion inhibitor protection of hot-dip galvanized steel

In previous work, the importance of taking the time-domain into account when studying corrosion inhibitor-containing electrochemical systems was highlighted. In this work, odd random phase electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (ORP-EIS) is applied as the electrochemical tool to study the time-effect by the evaluation of the non-stationarities per frequency decade over time for the screening of different silica- and phosphate- based corrosion inhibitors for hot-dip galvanized steel and possible corrosion inhibitor synergism. This serves as the basis for the interpretation of the results obtained from different macroscopic electrochemical techniques such as potentiodynamic polarization (PP), open circuit potential (OCP) with superimposed linear polarization resistance (LPR), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and electrochemical noise (EN) measurements. The analysis of the time-domain shows that all systems have a system-specific ‘stabilization’ time which affects the interpretation of the results obtained from the macroscopic electrochemical techniques. Furthermore, these results indicate that all corrosion inhibitors tested exhibit corrosion protective action and that the combination of both silica-based corrosion inhibitors show synergistic action on hot-dip galvanized steel.