Scientists at IIT Bombay develop new technique for measuring the coating performance

How often have we not encountered corrosion in some of our devices? Although there would be some coating to prevent them, the performance of the coated material deteriorates over time. These can affect the overall performance of the device itself.

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A key process responsible for this is the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), one of the fundamental processes in electrochemistry. This is responsible for the reduction of molecular oxygen to water that occurs at the cathode in various electrochemical devices like fuel cells, metal-air batteries, and electrolysers. In other words, the oxygen molecules from the surrounding environment react with electrons and hydrogen ions to form water.

Scientists have been studying the interactions at the interface between the coating and cathode. In practice, there are established methods to evaluate the viability of a coating for corrosion protection.

However, an improved quantitative method to characterize the coating performance was lacking.

In a breakthrough for electrochemical research, scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) have combined a recently developed hydrogen potentiometry (HP) method with conventional electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) to build an innovative approach for measuring the coating performance. Their method allows quantifying buried interfacial reaction rates. This pioneering technique offers a deeper understanding of how reactions occur at the interfaces between materials, which has significant implications for various fields, including energy conversion and corrosion prevention.