Corrosion Behavior of Copper at Elevated Temperature

Copper is shown to be susceptible to corrosion in the fields of electrical connector contact and thermal nuclear energy. This work aims at assessing the corrosion behavior of copper at elevated temperature via thermoanalytical technique, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and coulometric reduction. Cyclic voltammetric was used to identify the corrosion compound of copper and reduction potential. The corrosion mechanism is the formation of the copper oxides. The results shows Cu2O and CuO were the corrosion compounds. The initial corrosion of copper is the formation of Cu2O, which was converted to CuO in oxygen environment as time going on. For longer exposure time at elevated temperature, two corrosion layers developed on the surface of copper. The inner layer is Cu2O and the outer layer is made of Cu2O and CuO. Corrosion amount of copper shows an exponential kinetics with temperature.