Subbarao Raikar published his latest paper Sulfidation Kinetics of Titanium and Ti-6Al-4V with Elemental Sulfur in Corrosion Engineering, Science and Technology: The International Journal of Corrosion Processes and Corrosion Control (doi: 10.1080/1478422x.2023.2238388). While numerous papers have studied the sulfidation of titanium alloys, most of these papers used hydrogen sulfide as the sulfur source. Hydrogen sulfide is extremely toxic, which is why our sulfur-based Self-Terminating Etching Process (STEP) uses elemental sulfur to sensitized the PBF-fabricated Ti64. This paper provides updated sulfidation kinetic parameters to sensitize Ti64 using elemental sulfur.
Abstract: The sulfidation kinetics of titanium and Ti-6Al-4V (Ti64) using elemental sulfur were studied by measuring the amount of metal consumed instead of the change in mass or scale thickness. This metal consumption approach combines the parabolic oxidation law, Arrhenius equation, and Pilling-Bedworth ratio to determine the apparent activation energy and the pre-exponential factor of consumption of Ti64 during sulfidation. The estimations of apparent activation energy and pre-exponential factor were 110.4 kJ·mol−1 and 1.3 × 10−9 m2s−1 for the titanium-sulfur, and 116.2 kJ·mol−1 and 1.2 × 10−9 m2s−1 for the Ti64-sulfur system. Finally, a material removal predictor was developed to predict the amount of Ti64 consumed for a given sulfidation temperature and time.