Subject: Re: hydrogen embrittlement

From: [email-masked] (bui tho xuan)
Date: 14 Jan 1994 02:34:08 GMT

Dave Pinella sent me an email asking what corrosion charging
is.  I tried to answer him via email, but it won't go through.
So here it is , and sorry for the bandwidth waste:

he asked
>  ...corrosion charging?  What does that mean?

The "corrosion" charging process I refer to applies to
aluminum.  The lye (NaOH) solution breaks down the oxide layer,
the oxygen in water reacts with aluminum to form oxide, letting 
hydrogen diffuse into the lattice.

In practice, it's nothing more than submerging a piece of
aluminum in a bath of lye.  You can actuallly dissolve a
thin foil of aluminum this way.

tho