The corrosion behaviour of WC-VC-Co hardmetals in acidic media

The effect of increasing vanadium carbide (VC) content on the corrosion behaviour of tungsten carbide – 10 wt% cobalt hardmetals was investigated in 1 M hydrochloric (HCl), and sulphuric (H2SO4) acids solutions. Increasing VC content makes the open circuit potential (OCP) in the test solutions more negative than the base alloy. Specimens exhibited pseudo passivation in all the test solutions. Increasing VC led to decreasing corrosion current density. However, the corrosion current densities during chronoamperometric tests were lower for 0 wt% VC. XRD and Raman spectroscopy showed that hydrated WO3 formed in the surface films of all specimens in hydrochloric acid (HCl), while hydrated vanadyl sulphate also formed for higher VC content specimens in sulphuric acid (H2SO4).