CHEM02200704003 Nilamadhab Pandhy - Homi Bhabha National ...

Chapter 3
The mode of operation is similar to that of any standard AFM measurement such as contact
or semi-contact mode. As the electrochemical cell is a three electrode cell, normal potentiostat can
be used to control the working electrode potential with respect to reference electrode.
In the present investigation for studying the in-situ passive film morphology of 304L SS in
nitric acid medium, surface morphological investigations were carried out using a NT-MDT make
electrochemical atomic force microscope (Solver ProEC). The electrochemical cell was having
volume capacity of 5 ml, and electrodes used were specimen as working electrode, platinum as
counter electrode, and Ag/AgCl as reference electrode. All the component of electrochemical cell
such as Teflon cell, clips were cleaned in a solution of hydrogen peroxide and sulphuric acid for
12 h in order to avoid the contamination due to impurity. The morphological investigations were
carried out at fixed location of the specimen i.e. without changing specimen position in 0.1 M, 0.5
M, 0.6 M and 1 M nitric acid, respectively. The potential sweep during the scanning was varied as
revealed by potentiodynamic polarization study in the aforementioned nitric acid solutions.