Ultrafine-grained copper produced by machining and its unusual electrochemical corrosion resistance in acidic chloride pickling solutions

Abstract Ultrafine-grained (UFG) copper was prepared by facile machining procedure. High resolution transmission electron microscopy images revealed that, in UFG Cu, minimum grain size of 80 nm could be formed when a small machining rake angle was applied. The electrochemical corrosion behavior of UFG Cu in 0.5 M HCl was investigated by potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Comparing with coarse-grained Cu, UFG Cu exhibited notably declined corrosion current density. Particularly, when the size of Cu grains were reduced from 500 μm to 80 nm, the charge transfer resistance of anodic dissolution step dramatically increased from 200 to 621 Ω cm2.