Electrochemical Behavior of Carbon Steel in a Synthetic Environment and Hydrocarbon on a System with Continuous Flow

This work studies the behavior AISI 1018 carbon steel in a buffered solution of chlorides with and without hydrocarbon in a continuous flow rate system. For techniques was designed a cell setup of a system continuous flow. The electrochemical techniques used polarization curves and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The polarization curves obtained indicated that both the anodic part and the cathodic suffer a significant change with the addition of hydrocarbon. The presence of hydrocarbon in the system increases currents in comparison to the system in absence of hydrocarbon. The EIS technique shows steel has a higher activity in the studied solution presented at low frequencies. The adsorption of corrosive agents prevents the formation and growth of a passive layer of corrosion products. The analysis with XPS showed that the presence of hydrocarbon in the system allows the deposition of several Cl- crystals on the metal surface.