A Mach-Zehnder interferometer is employed to detect localized corrosion in the metallic/solution interface in the potentiodynamic sweep of the iron electrode in solutions. chloride ions respectively. This method provides an approach for Rabbit polyclonal to ZFP161. dynamic detection of localized corrosion at the metal/solution interface. observation of localized corrosion at the metal/solution interface. Optical interferometry can provide quantitative measurement of the optical path length (OPL) distribution that allows transparent samples to be described with a diffraction-limited transverse resolution and a sub-wavelength axial accuracy [29 30 The main advantages of this full-field optical method GSK1292263 are: nondestructive working principle fast response and the GSK1292263 advanced performance of the systems [31]. With those merits corrosion scientists have paid much attention to develop and utilize optical interferometric methods to study localized corrosion processes [6 32 Punckt observations have been carried out in our laboratory using digital holographic GSK1292263 methods to study the dynamic processes of electrochemical reactions [10 11 35 It has been proved to be effective in investigating the dynamic processes of the electrochemical reactions at the electrode/electrolyte interface. In this paper a Mach-Zehnder interferometer is employed to visualize localized corrosion processes at the metal/solution interface during anodic dissolution of iron in Na2SO4 and NaCl solutions in combination with linear sweep voltammetry. During the electrochemical processes of the iron electrode in the presence of chloride ions the local area of the electrode dissolved as metal ions firstly which led to high local concentration of the solution at the area. The distributions of the OPL difference are presented to observe the processes visually. 2 Voltammetric Measurements As shown in Figure GSK1292263 1 the electrochemical cell contains a three-electrode system. The cell is made up of optical glass and its volume is about 100 mL. The iron electrode (Puratronic Alfa Aesar 99.99%) with a diameter of 2 mm served as the working electrode. It was sealed in a glass tube with one end of tube sanded flat to expose the electrode. The counter electrode was a large sheet of platinum (0.8 cm × 2.8 cm). The reference electrode was a saturated calomel electrode (SCE) with a Luggin capillary whose end is set near the surface of the GSK1292263 iron electrode. All potentials reported here were with respect to SCE. Before each experiment the iron electrode was mechanically abraded with.