from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
The growing concern for environmental sustainability in industrial processes has led to the development of an environmentally friendly electrolyte for hydrogen embrittlement testing of steels. In this study, a new electrolyte composed of sodium dihydrogen phosphate (NaH2PO4), disodium hydrogen phosphate (Na2HPO4), L-cysteine (C3H7NO2S), and citric acid (C6H8O7) was tested as an alternative to the conventional 0.5 N sulfuric acid (H2SO4) electrolyte combined with thiourea (CH4N2S). Samples made from ČSN 13 030 steel were subjected to electrolytic hydrogen charging for different durations. Subsequently, Charpy impact tests and fractographic analyses were performed, and the hydrogen content in the samples was measured. The results showed that the new electrolyte provides hydrogen charging effectiveness comparable to that of the conventional sulfuric acid-based electrolyte. This indicates that the new formulation presents a more sustainable and environmentally friendly alternative for hydrogen embrittlement testing, without the environmental drawbacks associated with traditional electrolytes.
Keywords: Hydrogen embrittlement, sustainable testing methods, Charpy impact test© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.