Influence of grain refinement on the electrochemical behavior of AISI 430 ferritic stainless steel in an alkaline solution

⿢Passive and corrosion current densities increase with grain refinement.⿢Donor and acceptor densities increased with grain refinement in this solution.⿢Passive film thickness decreased by grain refinement.⿢Grain refinement offers worse conditions for passivity of AISI 430 ferritic stainless steel. In this paper, the effect of grain refinement on the electrochemical behavior of AISI 430 ferritic stainless steel in 0.1M NaOH solution was investigated. Potentiodynamic polarization curves showed that fine-grained samples have less corrosion potential, higher corrosion current density, and less protective passive film in comparison to coarse-grained samples. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) analysis revealed that implementing the thermomechanical operation led to lower polarization resistance. Also, Mott⿿Schottky analysis revealed that the passive films on both fine-grained and coarse-grained samples behave as n-type and p-type semiconductors and the semiconductor character of the passive films did not change by grain refinement. Moreover, it was found that the calculated donor and acceptor densities increased with grain refinement. Thus, the presented results indicated that grain refinement weakens the corrosion and passivation behavior of AISI 430 stainless steel in this alkaline solution.