Alloy 22 (UNS N06022) belongs to the Ni-Cr-Mo family and it is highly resistant to general
and localized corrosion, but it may suffer crevice corrosion in aggressive environmental
conditions, such as high chloride concentration, high applied potential and high temperature.
Alloy 22 is one of the candidates to be considered for the outer corrosion-resistant shell of
high-level nuclear waste containers. It is assumed that localized corrosion will only occur when
the corrosion potential (ECORR) is equal or higher than the crevice corrosion repassivation potential
(ER, CREV). The latter is measured by means of different electrochemical techniques using
artificially creviced specimens. These techniques include cyclic potentiodynamic polarization
(CPP) curves, Tsujikawa-Hisamatsu electrochemical (THE) method or other nonstandardized
methods. Recently, as a variation of THE method, the PD-GS-PD technique was
introduced.
The aim of the present work was to determine reliable critical or protection potentials for
crevice corrosion of Alloy 22 in pure chloride solutions at 90ºC. Conservative methodologies
(which include extended potentiostatic steps) were applied for determining protection potentials
below which crevice corrosion cannot initiate and propagate. Results from PD-GS-PD technique
were compared with those from these methodologies in order to assess their reliability.
Results from the CPP and the THE methods were also considered for comparison. The repassivation
potentials from the PD-GS-PD technique were conservative and reproducible, and
they did not depend on the amount of previous crevice corrosion propagation in the studied
conditions.
Keywords: N06022, chloride, crevice corrosion, repassivation potential, CPP, ASTM G 61,
THE, ASTM G 192