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Updated: May 20, 2025

Potentiodynamic Corrosion Testing
Published on: September 4, 2016
Two-electrode electrochemical scans vs. three-electrode scans in microbiologically influenced corrosion detection
Lingjun Xu1, Adnan Khan2, Di Wang3
1Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Institute for Corrosion and Multiphase Technology, Ohio University, Athens 45701, USA.
Abstract:
Electrochemical measurements are popular in lab microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC) studies. A classical 3-electrode (3E) setup is not suitable for biofilm/MIC test kits use because the reference electrode (RE) is fragile. For biofilm/MIC test kit applications, the counter electrode (CE) is used as CE and also pseudo-RE (p-RE) to create a 2-electrode (2E) setup. This work compared 2E and 3E scan results in a 450 mL glass cell containing sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB) with platinum and graphite serving as CE materials. In both SRB incubation and injection tests, 2E scan results turned out to be as reliable as 3E scan results in reflecting corrosion rates. The chemical injection test with platinum CE showed that after riboflavin, magnetite nanoparticles and tetrakis hydroxymethyl phosphonium sulfate biocide injections, the polarization resistance of X65 WEs shifted by -8.8 %, -6.2 % and 11 %, respectively in 3E scan, and - 6.6 %, -7.1 % and 8.3 %, respectively in 2E scan. The 2E and 3E scan results in a 10 mL miniature glass cell also correctly reflected MIC information indicating SRB biofilm maturity at 3 d. This study found that 316L SS, Cr, Ni and Mo can be potentially used as additional choices for CE/p-RE materials in biofilm/MIC test kit.
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