Question

What will be the corrosion rate of iron in a hydrochloric acid solution if a piece of iron with a surface area of 10 cm² loses 0.5 grams of mass after being immersed in the solution for 24 hours? Show your calculation with correct units.

Answer 1

To calculate the corrosion rate, we will use the following formula:Corrosion Rate  CR  =  Weight Loss  WL  * K  /  Surface Area  SA  * Time  T  where K is a constant to convert the units to the desired format. In this case, we will use K = 8.76 x 10^4 to convert the units to micrometers per year  m/year .Given:Weight Loss  WL  = 0.5 gramsSurface Area  SA  = 10 cmTime  T  = 24 hoursFirst, we need to convert the time from hours to years:1 day = 24 hours1 year = 365 daysT = 24 hours *  1 day / 24 hours  *  1 year / 365 days  = 0.0658 yearsNow, we can plug the values into the formula:CR =  0.5 * 8.76 x 10^4  /  10 * 0.0658 CR =  43800  /  0.658 CR = 66565.35 m/yearThe corrosion rate of iron in the hydrochloric acid solution is approximately 66565.35 m/year.