<![CDATA[Aluminium alloy 2024-T3 is widely used in manufacturing industries such as aircraft, automotive and ship industries due to its light weight and good mechanical properties. However, aluminium alloy 2024-T3 is suffered from corrosion attack when it is operated in corrosive environment such as sea water. One of the corrosion control methods is inhibitor addition. The present investigation aimed to study the effect of K2CrO4 inhibitor on controlling corrosion rate in sea water. In this research, K2CrO4 was added to sea water environment with various concentrations, i.e. 0.1, 0.3 and 0.5%. Subsequently corrosion rates were measured using three-electrode potential technique with saturated calomel (Hg2Cl2) electrode as a reference electrode whereas the auxiliary electrode was platinum (Pt). Additional experiments including compositional analysis, microstructural examination, hardness measurement and tensile test were also carried out to gain better understanding to the mechanism in which corrosion attacks aluminium alloy 2024-T3. Experimental results showed that corrosion rate of aluminium alloy 2024-T3 in sea water without inhibitor is around 0.0216 mm/year. The additions of K2CrO4 inhibitor tended to reduce the corrosion rate until a minimum value was obtained, typically 0.0134 mm/year (or 38% decrease) as the amount of K2CrO4 was 0.5%. The type of corrosion observed in this investigation was pitting corrosion as a result of local damage in passive film. Inhibitor seemed to form thin protective film on metal surface hence reducing corrosion rate.]]>
