The rate and form of corrosion that occur in a particular situation depend on many complex variables. This article discusses the rate of corrosion of lead in natural and domestic water depending on the degree of water hardness caused by calcium and magnesium salts. Lead exhibits consistent durability in all types of atmospheric exposure, including industrial, rural, and marine. The article tabulates the corrosion of lead in various natural outdoor atmospheres and the corrosion of lead alloys in various soils. It explains the factors that influence in initiating or accelerating corrosion: galvanic coupling, differential aeration, alkalinity, and stray currents. The resistance of lead and lead alloys to corrosion by a wide variety of chemicals is attributed to the polarization of local anodes caused by the formation of a relatively insoluble surface film of lead corrosion products. The article also provides information on the corrosion rate of lead in chemical environments.

This article describes the eight chemical cleaning methods, namely, circulation, fill and soak, cascade, foam, vapor-phase organic, steam-injected, on-line chemical, and mechanical cleaning. It presents information on deposit types, solvents used to remove them, and construction material incompatibilities in a table. The article summarizes the uses of chemical cleaning solutions, including hydrochloric acid, phosphoric acid, and sulfamic acid, as well as the additives used to neutralize their impact on corrosion. It discusses the chemical cleaning procedures, including selection of cleaning method and solvent, documentation of cleaning, and corrosion monitoring in chemical cleaning.

This article describes the safety precautions required for using laboratory equipment. It reviews the various personal protective equipment specified on the Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for laboratory chemicals and products. The article provides information on the storage and handling of etchants, solvents, acids, bases, and other chemicals. It describes the safety precautions and procedures for handling concentrated and dilute hydrofluoric acid. The article concludes with a discussion on the precautions to be followed in the event of spills and cleanup.

This article focuses on lubricants classified as either internal combustion engine or nonengine lubricants, and the lubricant additives. The functional groups of chemically active and inert additives, as well as friction modifiers and other additives, are described in detail. The chemically active additives include dispersants, detergents, antiwear, and extreme-pressure agents, oxidation inhibitors, and rust and corrosion inhibitors. The chemically inert additives include emulsifiers, demulsifiers, pour-point depressants, foam inhibitors, and viscosity improvers. The article also discusses the multifunctional nature of additives and concludes with information on lubricant formulation.

Metal contamination of the environment reflects both natural sources and industrial activity, affecting human health. This article begins with a discussion on the level of metal exposure resulting in toxicological effects, the factors influencing toxicity of metals, and carcinogenicity of metal compounds. It discusses some commonly used chelating agents for treating metal intoxication, and clinical effectiveness in treating poisoning by different metals. The metals discussed are grouped into four categories: (1) major toxic metals with multiple effects, including arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, and nickel; (2) essential metals with potential for toxicity, including cobalt, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum, selenium, and zinc; (3) metals with toxicity related to medical therapy, including aluminum, bismuth, gallium, gold, lithium, and platinum; and (4) minor toxic metals, including antimony, barium, indium, magnesium, silver, tellurium, thallium, tin, titanium, uranium, and vanadium. The main factors included in the discussion are their disposition, toxicity, biological factors and treatment.

The corrosion process that occurs in industrial systems is often difficult to discern until extensive deterioration has occurred. For boilers to function properly, the incoming water must be processed to meet the water quality required for the boiler. This article discusses pretreatment methods of the incoming water and preboiler corrosion protection methods. It analyzes internal treatment and condensate treatment of boilers. The article discusses three types of cooling systems: once-through systems, open recirculating systems, and closed recirculating systems. The corrosion processes which occur in water-recirculating systems and the effect of dissolved gases, temperature, pH, suspended solids, dissolved salts, and scale deposition on corrosivity of water, are also reviewed. The article also considers anodic and cathodic inhibitors and the control of corrosion in municipal water systems.

This article provides a summary of the conventional technologies used for titanium powder production. It focuses on the various processes for titanium powder production, namely, Hunter, Kroll, Armstrong, MER, TIRO, FFC-Cambridge, Chinuka, and CSIR processes. Employment of titanium powder significantly improves the synthesis of titanium and its alloys.

This article reviews the melt processing and casting of non-ferrous alloys, such as nickel alloys, titanium alloys, and lead alloys. It describes the lead refining steps, namely, copper drossing, softening, desilvering, zinc removal, bismuth removal, and final refining.

Copper alloys are widely used as electroplated coatings. They can also be used with practically any substrate material that is suitable for electroplating. This article focuses on the solution composition and operating conditions for brass and bronze plating solutions. It describes the decorative and engineering applications of brass and bronze plating. The article also provides information on the treatment of waste water from brass and bronze plating operations.

This article provides information on fracture toughness and fatigue crack growth of structural steels. It describes fatigue life behavior in terms of unnotched fatigue limits, notch effects, axial strain-life fatigue, and mean stress effects. The article analyzes the mechanisms of corrosion fatigue crack initiation and prevention of corrosion fatigue. It presents case histories of fatigue failure of various steel components. The article reviews the failure of coiled tubing in a drilling application and the failure of coiled tubing due to hydrogen sulfide exposure, with examples.

High-temperature corrosion can occur in numerous environments and is affected by various parameters such as temperature, alloy and protective coating compositions, stress, time, and gas composition. This article discusses the primary mechanisms of high-temperature corrosion, namely oxidation, carburization, metal dusting, nitridation, carbonitridation, sulfidation, and chloridation. Several other potential degradation processes, namely hot corrosion, hydrogen interactions, molten salts, aging, molten sand, erosion-corrosion, and environmental cracking, are discussed under boiler tube failures, molten salts for energy storage, and degradation and failures in gas turbines. The article describes the effects of environment on aero gas turbine engines and provides an overview of aging, diffusion, and interdiffusion phenomena. It also discusses the processes involved in high-temperature coatings that improve performance of superalloy.

This article presents information regarding the use of protective coatings in municipal potable water systems, including raw water collection and transmission, water treatment plants, and treated water distribution. It provides useful guidance for the selection and use of protective coatings in these municipal water systems. The most commonplace corrosion-damage mechanisms are highlighted. The article describes the most common materials of construction found in municipal water systems, namely, cast iron, ductile iron, carbon steel, precast concrete cylinder pipe and reinforced concrete pipe, prestressed concrete tanks, and stainless steel. It provides information on the most common generic coating systems used for new steel tanks and water storage tanks. It concludes with a discussion of quality watch-outs when selecting or using protective coatings in municipal water systems.

Complete vehicle accelerated corrosion testing on the proving ground is a mandatory testing tool among vehicle manufacturers around the globe. This article focuses on creating some awareness of the difficulty in applying reliable corrosion tests for all corrosion-sensitive automotive systems at once. It describes the various factors for a complete vehicle testing, including wear from road grit, dirt, salt load, elevated temperatures, and mechanical effects such as chafing and fretting. The article discusses the four main test blocks, namely, driving sequence on various proving ground tracks, exposure of the vehicle in one or more ways to road deicing salts, static exposure to forced climatic conditions, and additional elements such as operating the mechanical systems of the vehicle, car washes, and so forth. It concludes with information on the major advantages and drawbacks of a full-service-life test.

This article provides information on the municipal wastewater system components such as piping, pump stations, headworks, clarifiers, aeration structures, digesters, biosolids dewatering equipment, and sludge stabilization. It explains the major corrosion damage mechanisms to which those component parts of the system are exposed. It presents useful guidelines for selecting and using protective coatings in municipal sewerage collection systems and water reclamation facilities in wastewater treatment plants. The article includes annotated flow diagrams of a wastewater collection system, wastewater treatment plants, and spreadsheets listing the most widely used generic coating systems by structure and substrate material. It concludes with a section on quality watchouts when selecting or using protective coatings in municipal wastewater systems.

The corrosion processes of metals during burial are affected by environmental pollutants, other archaeological material, geography, microorganisms in the soil, vegetation, land use, soil chemistry, soil physical properties, and the presence or absence of water and air. This article discusses the key environmental variables that affect the corrosion of buried metal artifacts. These include water (including dissolved salts and gases), sulfate-reducing bacteria, pH (acidity), and potential (oxidizing or reducing capacity). The article contains tables that list some corrosion products identified on archaeological tin and pewter, lead, iron alloys, silver alloys, and copper alloys. It also discusses the corrosion problems after excavation and the techniques followed by archaeological department for conserving metal artifacts.

Simulated service testing includes exposures of either structural components or test specimens in environments that are representative of many general service situations. This article discusses the selection criteria of test specimens and methods of assessing the corrosion effects. The ASTM International and NACE International standards that are directly or indirectly applicable to simulated service corrosion testing in water are tabulated. The article also describes the effects of variable concentrations of dissolved carbonates, such as calcium, magnesium, and/or sodium, in water on corrosion.

This article presents a summary of the chemical fundamentals, general techniques, limitations, and applications of chemical spot testing as well as a brief overview of innovations and specialized applications. A list of selected reagents, including abbreviated instructions for preparing the reagent solution(s), for performing the spot test, and for interpreting the results, is also included. The article discusses two specialized applications of qualitative analysis, namely illicit drug identification and spacecraft drinking water quality testing. It also contains tables listing common presumptive tests for detecting anions and cations in aqueous solution.

This article focuses on some of the factors pertinent to atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS). It begins by describing the working principle, critical components, and construction of flame atomic absorption instrumentation. This is followed by sections discussing various types of interferences in AAS, namely vaporization, ionization, matrix interferences, and background correction. Some of the methods for the analysis of microliter-sized samples and methods of standard additions to the sample solution for generating calibration standards are then reviewed. The article concludes with a section on processes involved in matrix matching.

This article discusses the environmental factors and kinetics of atmospheric corrosion, aqueous corrosion, and soil corrosion of carbon steels. It also provides information on corrosion in concrete and steel boilers.

This article characterizes the corrosion resistance of precious metals, namely, ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, silver, osmium, iridium, platinum, and gold. It provides a discussion on the general fabricability; atomic, structural, physical, and mechanical properties; oxidation and corrosion resistance; and corrosion applications of these precious metals. The article also tabulates the corrosion rates of these precious metals in corrosive environment, namely, acids, salts, and halogens.