The impact of chromium on hard metal binders corrosion: a HI.Lab study

Seventy years of experience in engineering: this, in short, is the reason for the success of OMCD Group in the sintered carbides and hard metals industry. Among the cluster of companies belonging to the Italian group, we find HI.Lab, the historical OMCD laboratory specializing in powder metallurgy applied to the world of hard materials.

Recently, HI.Lab has been the protagonist of a study focused on determining the incidence of chromium on the formation of passivating corrosion-product film of cobalt- and cobalt-nickel based hard metal binders in acidic, neutral, and alkaline aqueous solutions.
The paper, titled "The role of chromium in the corrosion performance of cobalt- and cobalt-nickel based hard metal binders: A study centred on X-ray absorption microspectroscopy", was published in the journal "International Journal of Refractory Metals and Hard Materials", edited by Elsevier B.V.

M. Sc. Sandra Tedeschi and Dr. Gian Pietro De Gaudenzi, from the HI.Lab, have collaborated with a pool of leading professionals from Elettra Sincrotone (a multidisciplinary international research center based in Trieste, Italy) and the Polytechnic University of Milan to closely study the role of chromium in driving the spatial distribution of cobalt and nickel oxides on a micrometric scale, using synchrotron-based soft-X ray microspectroscopy.
The results show that amounts of Cr and Ni of approximately 50% significantly increase the corrosion resistance of cobalt in all ambients. In general, the scientists observed the growth of a continuous oxidized film onto which micrometric islands arise with different forms and distribution, according to the specific grade and aggressive conditions.

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