Corrosion of magnesium and its alloys

Any detailed study of the corrosion of magnesium and its alloys in aqueous environment, must consider the three important aspects: galvanic corrosion reaction between magnesium and another metal, microgalvanic corrosion reaction between magnesium and the secondary phases or impurity grains, and the negative difference effect (NDE). In this paper, we propose a mathematical model to describe microgalvanic corrosion. We also discuss the NDE based on Tafel type kinetics and explain the NDE behavior in a consistent manner. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.