Microbiological corrosion is a current problem and impacts the steel industry. This research studied the influence of Escherichia coli (Ec) in the corrosion of 316 austenitic stainless steel (SS) in Na2SO4 0.5 mol L-1. The techniques imployed were: open circuit potential, anodic potentiodynamic polarisation (APP), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and optical microscopy (OM). The APP curves showed that the 316 SS is passive from -400 up to +1050 mV versus a reference electrode of mercurous sulfate (ESM). In the transpassive region, APP observed that the presence of 0.1% Ec was the generator of a biofilm, allowing a decrease in the current of density (j), when compared to APP in the absence of Ec. However it was found that with 1% and 10% Ec, j again increased in this region, probably due to biofilm displacement on the surface of the 316 SS. The diagrams of EIS and the OM confirmed the results.
Microbiological corrosion; biofilm and 316 SS
