Chlorides and sulfates are the most important ions while considering the possibility of pitting corrosion of stainless steel. It is generally accepted that the risk of pitting increases with increasing chloride concentration and decreases with increasing sulfate concentration. There are also indications that higher sulfate/chloride ionic ratio is needed to inhibit the pitting corrosion of stainless steels at higher chloride concentrations. However, the role of cations in the pitting event has gained only a little attention. In this study the pitting behavior of stainless steel type AISI 304 (EN 1.4301) has been studied in various binary mixtures of MgSO4, K2SO4 or Li2SO4 with NaCl. Results are compared to those obtained in binary mixtures of Na2SO4 with NaCl as well as in plain NaCl.

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