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Metallurgy (communication arising)

Stainless-steel corrosion and MnS inclusions

Nature volume 424, page 390 (2003)Cite this article

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Ryan et al. reply

Frankel et al. find no depleted zone adjacent to MnS inclusions in stainless steels, which contradicts our results1 and raises important issues about pitting mechanisms. We have also used high-resolution electron microscopy and secondary-ion mass spectrometry mapping to study these systems, and our results are similar to those of Frankel et al., giving a consistently large scatter in the analysis. With SIMS mapping in particular, we find that the flux required to generate a significant signal means that too much material has to be removed; in addition, the sputter rate of the inclusion is higher than that of the matrix, and sulphur 'smears' are observed that blur the interfaces. We conclude that this method is not useful in these systems.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2BP, UK

    Mary P. Ryan, Richard J. Chater & David S. McPhail

  2. Department of Chemistry, University College London, London, WC1H 0AJ, UK

    David E. Williams & Bernie M. Hutton

Authors
  1. Mary P. Ryan
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  2. David E. Williams
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  3. Richard J. Chater
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  4. Bernie M. Hutton
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  5. David S. McPhail
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Correspondence to Mary P. Ryan.

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Ryan, M., Williams, D., Chater, R. et al. Stainless-steel corrosion and MnS inclusions. Nature 424, 390 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/424390a

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