Paper AS-TuP19
XPS Investigation of UHP Mg and Mg Alloys Exposed to Water: Peak Fitting the Mg 2p Core Level Spectra to Distinguish Oxide from Hydroxide

Tuesday, November 8, 2016, 6:30 pm, Room Hall D

Magnesium alloys are increasingly used in structural materials applications requiring high strength and light weight. Alloys containing Mg are also of interest in biomedical applications (implants) and energy materials applications (fuel cells, batteries, and hydrogen storage). The Department of Energy has aggressive materials research projects aimed at increasing the use of magnesium and magnesium-based alloys for vehicle applications. The primary interest in vehicles is to reduce the overall vehicle weight by substituting lighter weight Mg-alloys. One of the primary obstacles for increased use of Mg-alloys is the corrosion behavior of these materials. Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been studying aqueous corrosion behavior for several years to try to develop an understanding of the carrion film formation mechanism. The material presented in this poster is a portion of that larger program and is focused on using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) to study Mg-alloy corrosion. In this study we have exposed four Mg materials (UHP Mg; Mg-0.27Zr; Mg-0.14Nd; and Mg-2Al) to water for 4 hours to elucidate early film formation. Ar-ion depth profiling was used to compare the thickness of the corrosion films and to try to understand the partitioning between oxide and hydroxide growth. This poster demonstrates the Mg 2p peak fitting strategy that was employed. This abstract has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy.