When ions go hiking: New Insights into Solvation Kinetics at Electrocatalyst Surfaces

Crucial for the development of more efficient batteries and electrolyzers, or to fight corrosion

25-Sep-2024 - The Interface Science Department of the Fritz- Haber Institute has made additional strides toward "Exploring Dynamic Solvation Kinetics at Electrocatalyst Surfaces," as detailed in their article in the journal Nature Communications. Among other reactions, the researcher focused on the ion ...

The mystery of cathodic corrosion protection clarified

Two centuries of technological development

07-Jun-2024 - Cathodic corrosion protection is a widely used technique for protecting steel-based infrastructure from corrosion. ETH researchers have now clarified the detailed mechanisms involved, thereby resolving a controversial issue that had preoccupied the engineering community for decades. Corrosion is ...

Bacteria cause iron to rust

Anaerobic "rusting" of iron by bacteria with current-conducting pili

16-Aug-2023 - Iron does not only rust through contact with oxygen and water. Certain bacteria can also decompose iron anaerobically, i.e. in the absence of oxygen. The sediment bacterium Geobacter uses electrically conductive protein threads for this purpose, a research team has now discovered. The oxidized ...

Artificial intelligence designs advanced materials

Scientists of the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung pioneer new machine learning model for corrosion-resistant alloy design

15-Aug-2023 - In a world where annual economic losses from corrosion surpass 2.5 trillion US Dollars, the quest for corrosion-resistant alloys and protective coatings is unbroken. Artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly pivotal role in designing new alloys. Yet, the predictive power of AI ...

Spark Award for new corrosion protection

Sprayed on like paint, this polymer can even be peeled off again, recycled and reused

03-Apr-2023 - More effective, reusable and self-​repairing: a new kind of corrosion protection developed by the ETH researchers Marco D'Elia, Walter Caseri und Markus Niederberger has been honoured with ETH Zurich’s Spark Award 2023. The innovation offers excellent market potential and could significantly slow ...

New corrosion protection that repairs itself

An extraordinary corrosion protection was created from a chance find: It glows in places where it is not damaged, repairs itself – and can be reused multiple times

22-Feb-2023 - Skyscrapers, bridges, ships, aeroplanes, cars – everything humans make or build sooner or later decays. The ravages of time are known as corrosion; nothing is safe from it. This makes the fight against corrosion expensive. All countries together invest around 3.5 percent of annual global gross ...

Rusting iron can be its own worst enemy

Simulations show iron catalyzes corrosion in 'inert' carbon dioxide

26-Jan-2022 - Iron that rusts in water theoretically shouldn’t corrode in contact with an “inert”supercritical fluidof carbon dioxide. But it does. The reason has eluded materials scientists to now, but a team at Rice University has a theory that could contribute to new strategies to protect iron from the ...

Surface chemistry reveals corrosive secrets

Precise Measurements are the Molecular Lens to Seeing Chemistry

18-Oct-2021 - One can easily see with the naked eye that leaving an old nail out in the rain causes rust. What does require the keen eyes and sensitive nose of microscopy and spectroscopy is observing how iron corrodes and forms new minerals, especially in water with a pinch of sodium and calcium. Thanks to a ...

Monitoring the corrosion of bioresorbable magnesium

Better prediction of degradation rate of magnesium implants

28-Oct-2019 - ETH researchers have recently been able to monitor the corrosion of bioresorbable magnesium alloys at the nanoscale over a time scale of a few seconds to many hours. This is an important step towards accurately predicting how fast implants are resorbed by the body to enable the development of ...

Surprising discovery could change the way industry uses nickel

08-Aug-2019 - Nickel is one of the most abundant elements on earth. It is hard, yet malleable, magnetic at room temperature, and a relatively good conductor of electricity and heat. Most notably, nickel is highly corrosion resistant, which provides for a variety of uses by industry. However, a surprising ...