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.