Corrosion and oxidation behavior of Ti-based amorphous and nanocrystalline alloys

Amorphous alloys, in general, exhibit superior mechanical and chemical properties as compared to their crystalline counterparts, which is attributed to their chemical homogeneity and to the absence of crystal-like structural defects. Nanocrystalline and fully crystallized forms of these alloys can be easily obtained by a suitable thermal annealing treatment. It is important to have the knowledge of corrosion/oxidation behavior of amorphous and nanocrystalline alloys for various possible applications. In contrast to many investigations on corrosion and oxidation behavior of amorphous alloys reported in the literature, only limited studies have been carried out on comparison of corrosion/oxidation behavior of amorphous and nanocrystalline states of the same alloy. With this motivation potentiodynamic polarization studies were carried out on amorphous and nanocrystalline states of the alloy TiNi in several aqueous media at room temperature. The oxidation in air was also investigated in the temperature range 280°C-380°C using a thermogravimetric analyzer. It was found from these investigations that nanocrystalline state exhibits the maximum corrosion/oxidation resistance in comparison to amorphous and crystalline states. The better corrosion/oxidation resistance of nanocrystalline state can be explained in terms of the nature of the nanocrystalline phase/phases and the size of the crystallites. The results of the present study are supported by other similar studies reported in the literature. A short review on comparison of corrosion/oxidation behaviour of amorphous and nanocrystalline Ti-based alloy is also presented in the paper. © (2011) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.