Shipwrecks and Salvage > 6. Corrosion at Depths >
Perform a first-hand investigation to compare and describe the rate of corrosion of metals in different acidic and neutral solutions
- To compare the rate of corrosion of metals in acidic and neutral solutions, undertake the following procedure:
- Weight triplets of identical samples of both iron and zinc.
- Half-submerge one piece of iron in a test tube of water, one piece in 0.1 M hydrochloric acid solution, and one piece in 1 M hydrochloric acid solution.
- Repeat this for the three pieces of zinc.
- Leave the test tubes for two days under identical conditions.
- Remove the six pieces of metal and clean them.
- Reweigh the pieces of metal, and determine the difference between the final mass and the original mass for each.
- Determine the difference in the mass change between the samples placed in water and those placed in the hydrochloric acid solutions.
- Through the above procedure, it should be found that the samples submerged in 1 M hydrochloric acid solution have a considerably smaller final mass than the corresponding samples submerged 0.1 M hydrochloric acid solution, which in turn have a considerably smaller final mass than the corresponding samples submerged in water.