Effect of copper ions implantation on the corrosion behavior of ZIRLO alloy in 1 mol/L H₂SO₄

In order to study the effect of copper ion implantation on the aqueous corrosion behavior of ZIRLO alloy, specimens were implanted with copper ions with fluences ranging from 1×1016 to 1×1017 ions/cm2, using a metal vapor vacuum arc source (MEVVA) at an extraction voltage of 40 kV. The valence states and depth distributions of elements in the surface layer of the samples were analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), respectively. Glancing angle X-ray diffraction (GAXRD) was employed to examine the phase transformation due to the copper ion implantation. The potentiodynamic polarization technique was used to evaluate the aqueous corrosion resistance of implanted ZIRLO alloy in a 1 mol/L H₂SO₄ solution. It was found that a significant improvement was achieved in the aqueous corrosion resistance of ZIRLO alloy implanted with copper ions when the fluence is 5×10¹⁶ ions/cm². When the fluence is 1×10¹⁶ or 1×10¹⁷ ions/cm², the corrosion resistance of implanted samples was bad. Finally, the mechanism of the corrosion behavior of copper-implanted ZIRLO alloy was discussed.