Electrochemical and surface investigations of copper corrosion in dilute oxychloride solution

The corrosion behavior of copper immersed in dilute oxychloride solution (100 mM) was studied through surface investigation and in-situ monitoring of open-circuit potential. The copper corrosion was initiated with copper dissolution into a form of CuCl2-, resulting in mass decrease within the first 40 h of im-mersion. This was followed by a hydrolysis reaction initiated by the CuCl2- at the copper surface, after which oxide products were formed and deposited on the surface, resulting in a mass increase. The formation of nucleation sites for copper oxide and its lateral extension during the corrosion process were examined using focused ion beam (FIB)-scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The presence of metastable compounds such as atacamite (CuCl2 center dot 3Cu(OH)(2)) on the corroded copper surface was revealed by X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM)-energy dispersive spectrom-etry (EDS) analysis. (c) 2023 Korean Nuclear Society, Published by Elsevier Korea LLC. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).