Industrial Users are familiar with a number of cases in which alloys known to be resistant to sulphuric acid unaccountably have failed in service. Field investigation by the authors’ company indicates that in most such cases relatively large areas of lead were in metallic contact with the alloy which failed. Very frequently this failure has been laid to a change in the position (activation) of the alloy in the galvanic series for the particular electrolyte, causing it to become anodic to the lead.
This puzzling problem stimulated investigation by the Worthington Pump and Machinery Corporation and some of the results of this investigation already have been published. One of the authors’ papers1 discusses the potential change between Worthite* and lead, with Worthite becoming anodic in a 20 percent hot sulfuric acid solution as follows :
This article reports results of some preliminary investigations to determine the exact mechanism...
