A cold, chlorinated salt water treatment has been shown to improve the service life of
duplex stainless steels (ss). In this work, the cold, chlorinated treatment was extended to
determine if this treatment could be used improve the corrosion resistance of 304ss (UNS
S30400). The results showed that the cold, chlorinated treatment did not increase the
breakdown potential of 304ss when compared to 304ss samples that had been aged in ambient
temperature salt water for the same period of time. The results also show that there were
significant differences in the breakdown potential of 304ss that was aged in a 0.03M NaCl salt
water solutions for time intervals between 1 hour and 48 hours. The breakdown potential
increased with aging time. The difference between samples aged for 1 hour (shortest time) and
48 hours (longest time) was 191 mV. These are very interesting data from both experimental,
especially for short aging times, and practical considerations.