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Nano-deterioration of steel passivation film: chloride attack in material defects

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Abstract

A chloride attack is one of the culprits for the structural deterioration of steel passivation film in the coastal environment, which greatly limits the sustainability of the materials in infrastructure. Since the passivation film is usually only a few nanometers to tens of nanometers, it is necessary to study methods at appropriate scales. To effectively assess the hazards of chloride ions, the nanoscale process of γ-FeOOH deterioration is revealed by reactive molecular dynamics and electronic structures. It is found that the perfect γ-FeOOH can not deteriorate and the defects can facilitate chloride attack. The Cl− is first adsorbed on the defects of γ-FeOOH, and then induces the Na+ to form Cl-Na pairs. The vibration of Cl-Na pairs will weaken the interaction between the layers of γ-FeOOH and thus break the γ-FeOOH structure. The electronic structural analyses prove that the Cl ions have strong bonding with the hydroxyls of γ-FeOOH, but Na ions are the opposite. Therefore, the Cl and Na ions play the role of anchoring the γ-FeOOH surface and breaking the γ-FeOOH structure by vibration, respectively. The detail of nanoscale static and dynamic properties are also revealed. This phenomenon can be recognized as the first step in the structural deterioration of steel passivation films.

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Acknowledgements

M. W. and D. H. financial support from the National Natural science foundation of China under Grant U2006224, 51978352, 51908308, 52178221, National key research and development project 2022YFE0133800, Natural science foundation of Shandong Province under Grant ZR2020QE253, ZR2020JQ25, Shandong Provincial Education Department under Grant 2019KJG010, Qingdao Research Program 16-5-1-96-jch.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Qingdao University of Technology, Qingdao, 266520, China

    Muhan Wang, Shenrong Wu, Pan Wang, Mingliang Ma & Dongshuai Hou

  2. State Key Laboratory of Hydraulic Engineering Simulation and Safety, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Muhan Wang

  3. College of Civil and Transportation Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China

    Biqin Dong

  4. Department of Urban Innovation, Yokohama National University, Yokohama, 240-8501, Japan

    Zhao Wang

  5. School of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao, 266580, China

    Jie Zhong

  6. Ronghua Construction Group Co., Ltd, Qingdao, 266000, China

    Haisheng Li

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  1. Muhan Wang
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MW: Conceptualization, methodology, writing—original draft. SW: Data curation, writing—original draft. PW: Data curation. BD: Data curation. MM: Data curation. ZW: Writing—review and editing. JZ: Writing—review and editing. DH: Supervision, writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Dongshuai Hou.

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Wang, M., Wu, S., Wang, P. et al. Nano-deterioration of steel passivation film: chloride attack in material defects. Mater Struct 56, 35 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1617/s11527-023-02121-z

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