11.0: Introduction

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The Economical Impact of Corrosion

When we think of chemistry’s impact on the world, we often imagine high-tech discoveries, but sometimes it can be about protecting the materials we depend upon. Dr. Faiza Al-Kharafi, a pioneering electrochemist from Kuwait, built her career around understanding and preventing corrosion: the slow, often invisible electrochemical process that causes metals to degrade.

CHM135 Intro Graphics.png

Figure $\PageIndex{1}$: A graphic with basic facts about Faiza Al-Kharafi, an electrochemist who has explored the behaviour of corrosion under extreme conditions such as pH, salinity, and temperature, as well as ways to prevent it. She is the first woman to head a major university in the Middle East. Image reproduced with permission, copyright Eric Ramahatra for Women in Science 2011 - Kuwait City.

We all recognize corrosion: rust forming on a car, or the green roofs of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. In both cases, a metal (iron in the car, copper on the roofs) undergoes oxidation, meaning it loses electrons over time. Corrosion occurs when a metal reacts with substances like oxygen and moisture, forming metal oxides. This process can be accelerated by factors like temperature, salt, and pH. While corrosion is natural, preventing it is critical to extending the lifetime of materials.

As the first woman to lead a major university in the Middle East, Dr. Al-Kharafi focused her research on understanding corrosion in harsh environments, especially those found in the oil and gas industry. She studied how high temperatures, salinity, and pH affect corrosion rates in metals like aluminum, steel, and copper alloys. Her work helped explain how chloride ions in seawater accelerate corrosion and led to improved corrosion inhibitors. For example, she reported that an organic molecule, 5-phenyl-1-H-tetrazole, was able to inhibit the corrosion of copper up to 97% in high-salt solutions that mimic seawater. Her research has led to more effective materials for pipelines, desalination plants, heat exchangers, and water treatment infrastructure.

Figure $\PageIndex{2}$: Water pipe that shows signs of rust and corrosion. Stock image reproduced with permission under Pixabay Content License.

Though based in Kuwait, Al-Kharafi’s work addresses a global problem. In Canada, for example, our roads are salted in winter, our bridges face freeze-thaw cycles, and our energy and water infrastructure span vast, sometimes remote regions. Replacing corroded components is expensive: corrosion costs Canada over $50 billion USD annually (almost 3% of our GDP), affecting everything from municipal water pipes in Toronto to oil pipelines in Alberta. Managing corrosion is an economic and environmental priority. Dr. Al-Kharafi’s leadership in corrosion research serves as a reminder that scientific innovation solves problems on the global scale.

In this chapter, we’ll explore corrosion in more detail, along with the fundamentals of electrochemistry: how redox reactions generate electricity in batteries and galvanic cells, and how electrical energy can drive chemical reactions in electrolysis systems.

Sources:

Al Kharafi, F. M.; Ghayad, I. M.; Abdullah, R. M. Corrosion Inhibition of Copper in Non-Polluted and Polluted Sea Water Using 5-Phenyl-1-H-Tetrazole. International Journal of Electrochemical Science 2012, 7 (4), 3289–3298. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1452-3981(23)13954-x.
Al-Kharafi, F. Women in Science Awards 2011: Faiza Al-Kharafi, Kuwait, 2011. https://www.unesco.org/archives/multimedia/document-2162.
AMPP. 2021 IMPACT Canada; p 118. https://www.ampp.org/technical-research/what-is-corrosion/corrosion-reference-library/impact-canada.
Montgomery, E. Corrosion Fundamentals. Kennedy Space Center Corrosion Engineering Laboratory. https://public.ksc.nasa.gov/corrosion/corrosion-fundamentals/.
Corrosion and Corrosion Prevention. The Electrochemical Society. https://www.electrochem.org/corrosion-science.

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