Mechanical and chemical coupling in tribocorrosion: In situ and ex situ characterization techniques

Abstract Tribocorrosion combines mechanical wearing and electrochemical alloy dissolution from the worn surface. Thus, many parameters related to surface activation and interaction of the formed surface with electrolyte will determine the rate of tribocorrosion. This chapter reviews the application of different local electrochemical techniques to study the electrochemical (corrosion) processes taking place at the worn surface. Scanning vibrating electrode technique, scanning microcell technique, scanning Kelvin probe, Kelvin probe force microscopy, and scanning electrochemical microscopy can differently characterize the surfaces at the microresolutions and nanoresolutions. Vibrational spectroscopy introduces spatially resolved chemical information on tribofilms and formed reaction products. The combination of different techniques at the same surface scale helps to describe the tribocorrosion in more detail.