Rice team’s simulations show iron catalyzes corrosion in ‘inert’ carbon dioxide
Iron that rusts in water theoretically shouldn’t corrode in contact with an “inert” supercritical fluid of carbon dioxide. But it does.
Materials theorist Boris Yakobson and his colleagues at Rice’s George R. Brown School of Engineering found through atom-level simulations that iron itself plays a role in its own corrosion when exposed to supercritical CO2 (sCO2) and trace amounts of water by promoting the formation of reactive species in the fluid that come back to attack it.
In their research, published in the Cell Press journal Matter, they conclude that thin hydrophobic layers of 2D materials like graphene or hexagonal boron nitride could be employed as a barrier between iron atoms and the reactive elements of sCO2.
“Eliminating corrosion is a constant challenge, and it’s on a lot of people’s minds right now as the government prepares to invest heavily in infrastructure,” said Yakobson, the Karl F. Hasselmann Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering and a professor of chemistry. “Iron is a pillar of infrastructure from ancient times, but only now are we able to get an atomistic understanding of how it corrodes.”
– See more at Rice News
Related:
- Physics World: Watching iron rust produces new insights on corrosion
- CHEMIE.DE: Rostendes Eisen kann sein eigener schlimmster Feind sein
