Electropolishing of Stainless Steel: Meeting the Materials Requ

Summer 1990

Electropolishing of Stainless Steel: Meeting the Materials Requirements for Today’s Demanding Applications

Electropolished stainless steel materials are finding increasing use in high purity gas lines, medical devices, and food processing and packaging applications. Towards this end, both producers and end users arc developing various chemical and mechanical processes to produce “passivity” surfaces which are chemically inert and corrosion resistant. Although stainless steel produces a natural oxide in air that is chromium rich, the thickness is nol controlled and surface roughness often causes the oxide layer to be both non-uniform and sometimes patchy. Electropolishing is the most common treatment of stainless steel to produce a continuous, uniform layer of chromium rich oxide layer.
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