The Qaidam Basin is one of the areas with severe water shortage and salinization in northwest China. Therefore, water conveyance pipeline projects are proposed to address water-shortage problem in this area. 

However, corrosion of metals induced by highly salinized soils will reduce service life of pipelines in Qaidam Basin. Therefore, it is urgent to carry out the experimental research on the corrosion behavior of cast iron in saline soils. 

Recently, a research group led by Prof. LAI Yuanming from Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources (NIEER) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences investigated the corrosion behavior of cast iron in silty clay by using electrochemical measurements, Scanning Electron Microscopy and X-ray Diffraction. 

Scientists used electrochemical workstation to reveal the polarization characteristics, corrosion rates and electrochemical behavior of cast iron in silty clay with different water and salt contents under different corrosion time. 

Besides, scientists also investigated the microstructural morphologies and compositions of corrosion products by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) equipped with Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD). 

This research has been published on the Construction and Building Materials in an article entitled “Influence of water and sodium chloride content on corrosion behavior of cast iron in silty clay”. 

Contact: 

LAI Yuanming 

ymlai@lzb.ac.cn 

State Key Laboratory of Frozen Soil Engineering, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China.