Evaluation of metastable pitting on titanium by charge integration of current transients

Abstract The metastable pitting of titanium has been studied under potentiostatic control in solutions containing chloride ions. An approach based on the charge integration of current transients was proposed for a quantitative determination of metastable pitting. A pit density (dmpit) was defined as the number of metastable pits per unit area per unit time (cm−2 h−1) with a typical size, instead of a size distribution. The calculated dmpit of titanium at 0.5 VSCE in 0.6 M NaCl was about 1.0 × 103 cm−2 h−1 with a typical radius of 0.12 μm. An exponential potential dependence of dmpit was obtained through the integration approach.