Multianalytical in-situ investigations of the early stages of corrosion of copper, zinc and binary copper/zinc alloys

Abstract A new experimental infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy (IRRAS) set-up for in-situ investigation of corrosion phenomena occurring in the metal–atmosphere interface was developed. It was applied in combination with in-situ tapping-mode atomic force microscopy (TM-AFM) and phase detection imaging (PDI) to study the early stages of corrosion of pure copper and pure zinc as well as to determine the influence of increasing zinc contents in brass. Additionally, ex-situ secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) investigations were carried out on the samples after exposure. The investigations were accomplished in synthetic air with 80% relative humidity (RH) and synthetic air with 80% RH and 250 ppb SO 2 . The experiments showed that an increase of the zinc content in the brass alloy yields to an increase of the dimension of the corrosion features formed on the metal surface during weathering. Large features on top of smaller features were observed with TM-AFM on the surfaces exposed to SO 2 -containing humidified air, which could be identified by IRRAS as metal sulphur compounds. Furthermore, an increased amount of physisorbed water on the metal surfaces was determined with IRRAS in dependence of the increasing zinc content in the brass samples.