The effect of nitrogen ion implantation on the corrosion behaviour of stainless steels in chloride media

In this work, the effect of nitrogen implantation on the corrosion behaviour of an austenitic (AISI 304) and a ferritic (AISI 430) stainless steel is studied. With this purpose, doses ranging from 1 × 1014 N2+/cm2 to 1 × 1017 N2+/cm2 at an energy of 80 keV were tested by means of polarization resistance and Tafel extrapolation. The results showed that, in general terms, N implantation improves the corrosion resistance by increasing the polarization resistance and polarising the anodic reaction of the corrosion process. However, certain differences in the effect of N implantation in each stainless steel could be distinguished. The results obtained were compared with electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements.