The automotive sector is one of the biggest consumers of ferrous materials, which require an efficient protection against corrosion. This protection can be reached applying adequate coatings. A careful surface preparation is required to apply any kind of coatings on surfaces. The surface preparation can be done by a chemical attack. In this work, reaction rates of cold-rolled steel with different acid solutions were determined. The solutions used have low cost, are environmental friendly and some of them generate low quantity of hydrogen. The kinetic study was performed measuring the loss of mass (deltam/mg cm-2) of cold-rolled steel samples with time (s) reaction in the different solutions, with and without solution stirring, at 30 ºC. The results were interpreted considering the mass transfer effect, the Me3+ oxidizing and Fe2+ inhibitor effects on the steel dissolution. Among the different solutions studied, the 2 M H2SO4 + 1 M MeCl3 solution was the one that showed the highest rate, v = 15.44 x 10-6 g cm-2 s-1 for times up to 1800 s.
Iron steel; surface processes; loss of mass; chemical etching
