ศุภรานันท์ สุขเกษม. Electropolishing of 316L Stainless Steel : Effects of Electrode Gap, Area Ratio and Polishing Time on Surface Ronghness. Master's Degree(Food Engineering). King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi. KMUTT Library. : King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi, 2010.
Electropolishing of 316L Stainless Steel : Effects of Electrode Gap, Area Ratio and Polishing Time on Surface Ronghness
Abstract:
Electropolishing (EP) is a useful electrochemical process for finishing metal surface and is widely used in
pharmaceutical and food industries for easy cleaning and promoting corrosion resistance purposes.
Optimum condition of the process depends on many parameters, i.e., sizes of cathode (-) and anode (+),
electrode gap, type and concentration of electrolyte, temperature and current density. In this study,
the effects of the process parameters, i.e., electrode gap, area ratio of the electrodes and electropolishing
time, on the surface roughness of 316L stainless steel were studied. The workpiece (anode) material was
316L stainless steel type 28, whereas the cathode material used in this work was copper with constant sizes
of 4x4 cm. The anode size was varied to obtain the area ratios of cathode to anode of 1:1, 1.3:1, and 4:1.
Other variables were the electrode gap (5, 10, 25, and 50 mm) and the polishing time (1, 5, 10, and 15 min).
The electrodes were immersed in an electrolyte, which was composed of citric acid (55% w/v), phosphoric
acid (85% w/v), and glycerol at the ratio of 2.5:6.5:2.5 by volume; the temperature was kept constant at 85 C
in a water bath. The experiments could be divided into 2 parts. Firstly, the electrode gap and the area ratio
that gave the plateau region of I-V curve were determined. It was found that the passive film tended to occur
at 5 mm of the electrode gap and 1:1 of the area ratio. Secondly, the optimum condition of the EP
process was determined by measuring the surface roughness using Mahr PS1 pocket surf and optical microscope.
The results showed that electropolishing condition of 0.5A/cm2 (12.8 V) for 10 min improved the surface
roughness significantly as compared with the other treatments (p<0.05).