Corrosion Behaviour of Cemented Carbides with Co- and Ni-Alloy Binders in the Presence of Abrasion

More and more often, cemented carbides are employed for the production of wear resistant components and have to face highly demanding service conditions that combine different damage mechanisms. A key example is the range of tetraphasic (sea water, sand, liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons) flows encountered in the Oil and Gas extraction industry. Notwithstanding the importance of operating regimes of this type, the availability of fundamental and quantitative information on the corrosion performance of cemented carbides in the presence of abrasion is still limited. In this paper, we report a systematic study of the corrosion behaviour of cemented tungsten carbide grades with binders containing different amounts of cobalt (Co), nickel (Ni), chromium (Cr) and noble metal additions, subjected to controlled mechanical abrasion, impacting the stability and nature of pseudopassivation films. In this work, special attention is devoted to Cr, a classical of additive that inhibits the Ostwald ripening of tungsten carbide (WC) particles and notably improves the corrosion resistance of grades with ultrafine-to-fine WC grain size and low-to-medium binder content. We assessed the impact of binder composition on the anodic behaviour by means of linear-sweep voltammetry and chronopotentiometry as well as on the mechanical properties. The application of controlled abrasion conditions under electrochemical control is carried out with an in-house modified ASTM B611 apparatus, equipped with a three-electrode system, enabling the systematic investigation of the synergy of electrochemical and mechanical damaging conditions. Increased corrosion resistance in environments without and with added chloride-both in the absence and in the presence of abrasion-was observed in all the Co- and Ni-based grades to which growing quantities of Cr were added. Moreover, doping with ruthenium (Ru) further enhances corrosion resistance. Regarding corrosion in the presence of abrasion, the addition of Cr and Ru increases the ability of regenerating the pseudopassivation film. The optimized compositions of the binder have been highlighted that open up attractive opportunities of improved service behaviour and deployment in new applications.