Corrosion evaluation and diagnostic: use of electrochemical techniques in metal conservation

Electrochemical techniques provide several methods to analyse corrosion mechanism and to measure values such as corrosion rate on metals and alloys. They are widely used in Materials Science as a tool to characterise metals corrosion and protection. In the last ten years several applications in the wide field of metal conservation have been developed, in order to characterise the corrosion mechanism in several environments, the corrosion products, and the conservation treatments (cleaning, protection treatments, etc.). A basic description will be provided for the more widely used techniques, namely: -basic principle - instrumentation - sample application to conservation studies Metallic objects of interest for Cultural Heritage preservation can extend over a wide range of size, shape, composition, and environment. Advantages and limits of the different techniques will be discussed in order to enlighten their field of applicability and to guess the usefulness of the different techniques according to the conservation issue to address. A special attention will be paid to the peculiar case of outdoor exposure of monuments.