Microbiologically Induced Corrosion (MIC) takes place in harbors, nuclear plants, oil industry structures and most production plants. MIC is often observed as a localized corrosion (pits, which can evolve into uniform corrosion. Thus, an electrochemical device devoted to local investigations has been developed with the aim of detecting, localizing and characterizing events induced by a bio-corrosion process to enable factors controlling initiation and stabilization of bio-corrosion to be analyzed more deeply. The mapping technique presented uses two microelectrodes to measure local current in the vicinity of corrosion pits. The basic principle consists of measuring the potential difference between 2 blocking microelectrodes positioned as close as possible to the investigated surface. This potential difference is directly connected to ohmic drop in the electrolytic solution in which current lines are
established due to corrosion processes occurring at the metallic material surface. After calibrating the technique, investigations have been performed with C-steel coupons exposed to SRB media on which a
localized corrosion process had been initiated by scratching. These investigations enabled biocorrosion pits to be detected and accurate corrosion rates to be evaluated. This new technique has been used to
investigate the effect of a biocide on a C-steel (API 5L) localized corrosion rate correlated to the biological activity of a SRB biofilm. The mechanical priming of localized biocorrosion has been studied and the results have been correlated with studies of a biocorrosion sensor and SRB biocorrosion process.
Keywords: carbon steel; biocorrosion, localized corrosion, pitting corrosion; microbiologically induced corrosion; sulfate reducing bacteria; scanning microelectrodes.