Corrosion Rate Monitoring Using PCB-based Multielectrodes Array Sensors

Corrosion is a natural process occurs due to the electrochemical process that may affect the human life, unscheduled shutdowns, and environmental contamination. Thus, the efficient corrosion monitoring and inspection techniques are important to control the effect of corrosion. The purpose of this project is to develop automated corrosion rate monitoring system using PCBbased multi electrodes array sensor (MAS). The automated switching circuit will communicate with the Keithley 6487 Picoammeter to measure the Icorr (lcorr) when the MAS is immersed in the corrosive environment. The real time corrosion rate will be captured using the data acquisition system and the data will be analyzed. The automated switching circuit is being fabricated in Printed Circuit Board (PCB) consist of microcontroller, relays 5VDC, transistors and resistors. The communication between exceLINX for Keithley 6487 Picoammeter and microcontroller were also attempted. However, due to time constrain it is left for future worR. Maximum corrosion rate monitoring using PCB-based MAS experiment was done. First experiment use 3%wt, 6%wt and 9%wt sea salt solution to ooserve ilie capaoilities of PCB-oased MAS in detecting the changes of solution concentration. Second experiment is to determine the effect of confOrmal coating on PCB-oased MAS performance. The corrosion recognized capability is tested in acidic (HCl) solution with concentration o.5Moi and 2Mol using cyanoacrylate and epoxy conformal coating. PCB-based MAS can detect the changes of solution concentration and cyanoacrylate conformal coating on copper produce low maximum corrosion rate compare to the epoxy because of the inhibiting property that it have. In addition, peeling off epoxy affected the maximum corrosion rate when immersed in HCI